It’s official, Nicolas Cage will be playing the role of Joe Exotic in an all-new eight-part series about the life of the former eccentric Oklahoma zookeeper, the subject of the hit Netflix docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Madness and Mayhem.
CBS confirmed to Buzzfeed, "Nicolas Cage has closed a deal with Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios to play the now-famous tiger king, Joe Exotic, in an eight-episode limited series that will go to market in the next few days."
In contrast to the docuseries, this will be a scripted series based on an article by Leif Reigstad, Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild. It is a lengthy and extremely well-researched article that chronicles the life of this larger than life character who came to refer to himself as the 'Tiger King'. It also details many conversations that Reigstad had with Joe himself and all the main role players in the bizarre charade that was his life.
In describing the day that Exotic was arrested Reigstad writes,” Joe watched as they pointed their weapons at him and shouted, “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!”
“He dropped and felt a knee drive into his back. He was cuffed and taken to the federal courthouse for an arraignment hearing. Joe learned that he was being accused of attempting to hire two hitmen to kill Carole Baskin.”
“Suddenly he was famous again, his mulleted mug all over the national news. The story of how it had come to this would strain even the darkest imagination.”
And thus it was that the story picked up when it was supposed to have ended. Catapulted into the international spotlight thanks to the huge success of the series, Exotic has received the fame he has always desperately hankered after. That fame has, however, come at a price, he is currently serving a 22-year sentence for his involvement in the murder to hire plot of big cat-rights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, Carole Baskin.
Tiger King was a massive success after it launched on Netflix on March 20 - it was hard to believe that what one was watching was not fiction. According to Nielsen ratings, the seven-episode true-crime docuseries was viewed by 34.3 million people in the first 10 days of its release. Undoubtedly this new series will be a sure-fire success for Cage, the only actor to be cast thus far.
Meanwhile, it has been reported on various entertainment news sites that Joe Exotic’s legal team is preparing a case file to send to President Trump claiming that Exotic was wrongly convicted.
The curtain is certainly not coming down on this ‘soap opera’ anytime soon.
