Cage set to play Joe Exotic in TV series
Talk about wild casting news.
Nicolas Cage has been tapped to play Joe Exotic, the subject of the popular Netflix docuseries “Tiger King,” in a limited series that is currently in development.
CBS TV Studios, Imagine Television Studios and Make Good Content are among those behind the eight-episode TV series, which will be taken to networks “in the next few days,” according to CBS.
Cage would also be an executive producer through Saturn Films.
The TV series is the first for Cage, who has played a range of characters in movies including “Leaving Las Vegas,” for which he won an Oscar, “Moonstruck” and “National Treasure.”
The show will be based on a Texas Monthly article, “Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild,” by Leif Reigstad, which was optioned by showrunner Dan Lagana and Make Good Content’s Paul Young in June 2019.
The summary for the series reads: “The story centers around Joe Shreibvogel, an eccentric, exotic zookeeper in Oklahoma who fights to keep his park
— even at the risk of losing his sanity. The series will live in the lion’s den with Joe, explore how he became Joe Exotic, and how he lost himself to a character of his own creation.”
Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, is currently in prison. Earlier this year, he was sentenced to 22 years for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and killing tigers.
Lagana was previously the showrunner on the Emmy-nominated Netflix mockumentary series “American Vandal.” His other credits include the MTV series “Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous” and the Hulu series “Deadbeat.”
This show is the latest project to come out of Imagine and CBS’ co-production and co-finance partnership. The partnership already includes “Why Women Kill” at CBS All Access, “68 Whiskey” at Paramount Network and “Swagger” at Apple.
This is the second announced scripted series about the bizarre world of “Tiger King.” Kate McKinnon is attached to play Carole Baskin and executive produce a series based on the podcast “Joe Exotic.”