DETROIT — For the past 10 years, the locally founded and operated Nicolas Uncaged festival has toasted the work and legacy of Nicolas Cage, the Oscar-winning actor who is one of Hollywood's most enigmatic stars, with an appropriately freewheeling celebration that is closer in spirit to a house party than it is a film festival.

If this year's event is the last — and no final decisions have been made, but it's been talked about as an endpoint — organizers want to make sure they send it off in style.

"We just want to go down in a blaze of glory," says Jerilyn Jordan, who would sit on the Nicolas Uncaged board of directors if anything involved with the event were that formal. In reality, she's one of four Cage superfans who has been working behind the scenes to put together the fest, to honor Cage with her fellow film freaks one more time, and maybe one final time.

Saturday's event, which will be held at Planet Ant's Ant Hall in Hamtramck, includes a screening of "The Wicker Man," Cage's infamous 2006 bomb, which ranks among the actor's most over-the-top performances — no small feat, considering his body of work. Also on the docket is "Next," Cage's 2007 sci-fi thriller, in which he plays a Las Vegas magician who can see into the future, but only a few minutes or so, not enough to make any meaningful impact.

In addition to the movies, there will be drink specials, prize giveaways, a talent show, a dance party and other Cage-related mayhem, including a few surprises that organizers are keeping under wraps. Costumes aren't required but they're heavily encouraged, and the event features a cult theme, which ties into "The Wicker Man," as well as general fandom of Cage.

The 61-year-old actor, the nephew of legendary Detroit-born filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, has been working steadily for the past 40-plus years, after making his screen debut in 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." He's appeared in blockbusters and flops across the genre spectrum, always bringing his unique intensity to each role, no matter the end product.

His films have grossed more than $6 billion at the worldwide box office, he lead the "National Treasure" franchise and he won an Oscar for playing an alcoholic with a death wish in 1995's doomed romance "Leaving Las Vegas." (He was also nominated for an Oscar for his role in 2002's "Adaptation," in which he plays a dual role as twins.)

While Cage has been ridiculed for the wealth of projects he takes on and his career has had wild ups and downs — over the past few years, he's generally considered to be on an upswing — Jordan wants to make clear her fandom of the actor is sincere. If it wasn't, she and her husband, Austin Eighmey, wouldn't have spent the last several weeks building an 8-foot-tall Wicker Man sculpture they'll be hauling to Saturday's event.

"This is not ironic," says Jordan, 37, a journalist who once talked to Cage for Interview magazine. "This isn't because we thought the memes were funny, or we think he makes bad movies. We are moved by this man and his tenacity. He doesn't stop moving, he doesn't stop creating. One of my favorite things is when you Google 'how many movies has Nicolas Cage been in,' Google doesn't know! It says 'at least 118.' It doesn't even try to calculate. So when we pick a movie like 'Next,' which is pure camp, it's not about irony. There's a purity that we have for our love of Cage that goes into this event."

Nicolas Uncaged debuted in 2015 at Cinema Detroit, back when it was housed inside midtown's Burton Theatre. That initial event also featured a screening of "The Wicker Man," along with "Drive Angry," 2011's auto-themed thriller, which co-stars Amber Heard.

The event grew in both stature and attendance and eventually moved to Hamtramck's Planet Ant. In 2019, Cage's stuntman, Schuyler White, appeared at the festival and agreed to be lit on fire as part of his performance, a high point for the fest, although it required navigating a slew of permitting and ordinances to make happen.

Those duties fell to Jack Schulz, one of Nicolas Uncaged's co-founders, who works by day as a civil rights attorney in Detroit. He says real life has made organizing the festival increasingly difficult over the years — the event took a year off in 2024, for no reason other than he and the others couldn't find the time to dedicate toward doing it — which leads to this year's 10th event as being a good bookend to, perhaps, close things out. (The event has also never made money, Schulz says, and he was personally out several thousand dollars the year of the stunt man blaze.)

"We're approaching this as it being the finale. However, the demand keeps calling us back," Schulz says. "I'm not making this up, I get at least two messages a week, whether it's on Facebook or social media or texts from people being like, 'when's it happening?' So I don't really see that going away."

This weekend's event falls as another Cage classic, 1990's "Wild at Heart," is screening Friday at the Redford Theatre. The more Cage appreciation, the merrier, says Jordan.

While Cage himself has never appeared at the festival, organizers have repeatedly reached out to invite him, and his name is always on the guest list.

"I've tried. If anyone has tried, it's me," says Jordan. "All I ask is for Nic to send a video. That's all we want. We don't expect this man to fly from Bali to Hamtramck to please a bunch of drunk freaks. But I did ask. Who knows. He is a man of many surprises. Just as he chooses his films, he keeps people guessing.

"Could he show up? Sure. Will he? Probably not. Is it my dream? Yes. Do I fantasize about it during the planning? Absolutely," says Jordan. "I picture myself on stage, I'm about to introduce a movie, and I just feel the air in the room change, and I know that someone is here, something's different, and he just emerges."

Jordan isn't holding her breath, but she says she hopes Cage sends something along, whether it's a video greeting or a signed poster or something to share with the Nicolas Uncaged crowd.

It would be a highlight, she says, but the success of the event isn't hanging in the balance.

"The goal was never to get Nicolas Cage at our party," Jordan says. "Our goal was to throw the best Nicolas Cage party."

Nicolas Uncaged

7 p.m. Saturday

Planet Ant, 2320 Caniff St., Hamtramck

Tickets $39.19

eventbrite.com

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