Nicolas Cage will star in a scripted series about Joe Exotic, the viral star from the Netflix docuseries ‘Tiger King’.
According to Variety, the eight-episode series is produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios and will feature Nicolas Cage as the ‘Tiger King.’
The series will be based on the Texas Monthly article “Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild,” by Leif Reigstad.
CBS Studios optioned the rights to the article in June of 2019. Variety reports Dan Lagana will work as the show’s writer, showrunner, and executive producer. Cage will executive produce the project with his production company Saturn Films.
The series will focus on Joe Schreibvogel, also known as Joe Exotic, a zookeeper who fights to keep his park open even as the world crumbles around him. The series will explore how he became Joe Exotic and how he lost himself in the eccentric character he created.
This will be the first regular TV role of Nicolas Cage’s acting career. He is most known for his roles in hit movies. He won the Academy Award for the best actor for “Leaving Las Vegas” and getting a nomination for “Adaptation.” He has other hit movies, including “Moonstruck,” “Raising Arizona,” “Face/Off,” and the “National Treasure,” and “Ghost Rider.” His next movies are “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” and “Pig.”
According to Variety, the “Tiger King” docuseries dropped on March 20th and became a viral hit with 34.3 million unique viewers in the first ten days of airing.
In relevant news, Netflix added 16 million new subscribers during the pandemic with Tiger King among the most-watched productions.
Netflix added nearly 16 million paid streaming accounts in the first three months of 2020, beating prior estimates thanks to the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing guidelines.
The streaming platform announced the company had 182.9 million paid subscribers around the world at the end of the first quarter of 2020. Netflix previously estimated only adding 7.0 million subscribers in the quarter, but it was before COVID-19 forced millions of people to stay at home. Following the immense growth in the first three months of 2020, the platform expects slower growth after the lockdown is lifted throughout the rest of the year.
“[O]ur membership growth has temporarily accelerated due to home confinement,” Netflix said in its letter to shareholders. The company also announced the shutdown of Hollywood productions, has improved their “free cash flow” but, some productions will be delayed by approximately three months.
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- ‘Tiger King’ Editor Reveals Crazy Secrets From the Netflix Series
- Netflix’s Joe Exotic Reveals The Actors He Wants for a ‘Tiger King’ Movie
- Coronavirus: Netflix’s ‘Spenser Confidential’ is The Most-Watched Movie (Report)
- Coronavirus: Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ is on an Indefinite Hiatus