Good news for both Nicolas Cage and fans of Nicolas Cage interested in seeing him get his fiscal solvency back: Cage has reportedly paid a large chunk of his tax debt to the IRS to the tune of $6,257,005. That figure isn't just a random number Cage cooked up during a bender, it's the exact amount he allegedly failed to pay the IRS back in 2007.
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This doesn't clear Cage of his debts to the IRS, but it is a big step. Stemming from tax problems dating all the way back to 2002, Cage still owes around $6 million more of the original $13 million debt. Cage blames these tax problems on his (former) business manager and has made several small (for him) payments in order to get the figure down to what it is today.
Fortunately for Cage, he's in a position in Hollywood where it's fairly easy for him to make some quick cash. Although he's far from the critically-adored movie star/artist that he used to be, Cage occupies an unusual strata of Hollywood stardom in which he can appear in any crazy project he wants and members of the Nic Cage cult will show up just to see what he does next. So in between big blockbusters like The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Cage might have been the only guy to actually turn a profit on that one) he appears in small, oddball movies with directors like Werner Herzog as in the cheerfully insane Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
So basically, all Cage has to do to get his life back from the IRS is make another Ghost Rider or National Treasure movie, and he should be able to pay off that debt with not much trouble at all. Then maybe he'll go back to making only respectable Oscar-worthy projects like he did during that brief shining period of his career (or not).
