Nicolas Cage is not afraid to go big. “It’s not going to be the same old, same old.”But at some point, that bigness is exactly what audiences came to predict from him. Cage could sense that shift but felt powerless to stop it: How should a star react when the public’s changing perception starts to turn like a tidal wave? Cage sent up his persona by playing a heightened version of himself in last year’s “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” but found even more to mine in “Dream Scenario,” which has its limited release next Friday. Still, once those collective dreams become nightmares, the hapless professor is helpless against the public backlash.

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