Nicolas Cage has been officially cast to play the "Tiger King" himself Joe Exotic. This would not be the feature-length movie adaptation people were clamoring for, but, maybe more excitingly, a TV miniseries adaptation of the hit Netflix series.
According to a report from Variety, this will be a new eight-episode series, which will be written and executive produced by Dan Lagana — best known for American Vandal — and Paul Young. The project is being produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios. No additional cast members have been announced as of now.
Per Variety: “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.”
When it comes to “Tiger King,” the million-dollar question has to be, would it have been as popular if most of the country weren’t on pandemic lockdown? We’ll never really know the answer, but there’s no doubt, in my mind at least, that a majority of Americans staying at home probably helped boost its numbers. The Netflix docuseries became a pop culture phenomenon in early March as the rivalry between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, it seems, only the second most-discussed topic in the country after COVID-19.
Over its first 10 days of release, “Tiger King” was seen by 34.3 million unique viewers in the US alone. Those 10-day numbers easily beat former champ “Stranger Things 2” and its 31.2 million viewers. Going past the first 10-days, “Tiger King” clocked in more than 40 million viewers. That means 1/8 of the entire country had seen the Joe Exotic saga in its first two weeks of release.
“Tiger King” is available to watch now on Netflix. There is currently no release date for Nic Cage-starring adaptation.