Everybody’s favorite gay, gun-carrying, mullet-sporting apex predator keeper who previously had “a judgement against him from some bitch down there in Florida” will be immortalized on TV again, this time in a scripted show starring Nicolas Cage.
We are of course talking about Joe Exotic of Netflix’s Tiger King lore. Variety reports that Imagine Television Studios and CBS are producing eight-episode series focused on the feline-fueled chaos spawned by the former Oklahoma zookeeper’s batshit lifestyle. More specifically, the show will explore how Exotic, aka Joe Schreibvogel, created his persona, struggled to maintain his park and sanity, then ultimately lost himself.
Dan Lagana, who previously show-ran Emmy-nominated Netflix mockumentary series American Vandal, will serve as writer and showrunner, as well as share share executive producing duties with Cage.
We realize that Cage was the star of two movies featured in Jacob Graye’s list of 10 Movies That Are So Bad, They’re Good. That doesn’t mean we’re not excited to see him strap on Exotic’s feline-feces caked boots, grow his locks out and give that hillbilly accent a whirl. Though this is first television role, Cage is a decorated silver screen actor, having won the Academy Award for best actor for 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas and secured the same nomination for 2002’s Adaptation.
As Variety notes, Cage also offered his voice to the Oscar-winning animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse and is set to star as himself in the meta-movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
