Tiger King has been a huge success for Netflix. Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is a documentary mini-series that centres around Joe King, a former zoo operator who in 2019 was convicted of animal abuse and — get this — MURDER FOR HIRE, for the plot to kill the CEO of Big Cat Rescue. The docu-series has been trending on Netflix all over the world, including here in Malaysia. It’s been such a huge success, in fact, that other networks have decided to jump on the bandwagon. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about Fox’s plan of releasing a new documentary on Joe King that promises to explore some unanswered questions from Netflix docuseries.
Now, it looks like we’ll be getting a biopic of sorts as well. Not only that, Nicolas Cage is set to play the eccentric zookeeper. The series will be based on Leif Reigstad’s Texas Monthly article ‘Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild.’ The show is set to be an eight-episode mini-series and NOT a documentary. Per Variety:
The story centres 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.
Nicolas Cage being as Joe King is one of those genius casting moves that nobody thought about but makes total sense. Cage has made a career playing wacko characters, so this is pretty much a match made in heaven.
The eight-episode series is being produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios. Dan Lagana will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer under his overall deal at CBS TV Studios with Paul Young executive producing via Make Good Content. Cage will serve as a producer as well.
