Nicholas Cage Tapped To Play Joe Exotic In ‘Tiger King’ Scripted Television Series

Weeks after Ed Norton and Dex Shephard took to social media to feud over who’d make a better  film production, Nicholas Cage swooped in out of left field to land the first official role centered around the 2020 pop culture phenomenon.

More than a decade after Ghost Rider seemingly ended whatever respectability he had left in his illustrious film career, Variety is reporting that Cage will be transformed into the openly gay zoo operator turned madman in an eight-episode limited series centered around a Texas monthly article, “Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild,” by Leif Reigstad. The series is set to be produced by CBS Television Studios and Imagine Television Studio with Dan Lagana serving as writer, showrunner, and executive producer.

The story centers around Joe Schreibvogel, a.k.a Joe Exotic, 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.

Though Cage has been keeping himself busy with a gang of B-movies and what would be considered straight to DVD projects, this is a huge coup for the one time Academy Award winning actor who’s looking to get back in the limelight he once thoroughly enjoyed in his career. The man was once married to Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.

No word on when the series will be releasing or even begin filming at this point, but we expect them to pull the trigger ASAP as this is the second announced Tiger King scripted series in 2020. Not too long ago it was announced that SNL star Kate McKinnon was tapped to play the role of Carole Baskin in Universal Content Production’s take on the Joe Exotic saga but have yet to cast a Joe Exotic or even land a writer for their project.

Are y’all looking forward to seeing Nicholas Cage as the Tiger King or would you have preferred him to reprise his role as Johnny Blaze in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe? Let us know in the comments.