Nicolas Cage will play Joe Exotic in Tiger King scripted series from American Vandal showrunner

There’s a pandemic, all our favorite TV shows keep ending, and there are apparently “murder hornets” now, but at least 2020 is giving us Nicolas Cage as Joe Exotic. The Wicker Man star [not John Wick star as was erroneously published earlier] is set to play the eccentric zoo owner in a new scripted series based on the same Texas Monthly article that spawned Netflix’s breakout hit docuseries Tiger King, THR reports.

American Vandal showrunner Dan Lagana and Paul Young reportedly optioned the Texas Montly article in June 2019 and Cage had been in talks to play the lead role since April. The show has yet to be picked up by a network, but Laguna will serve as writer and showrunner for the new series, which is currently titled Joe Exotic and “will center on Joe as he fights to keep his animal park even at the risk of losing his sanity. It will explore how Joe became Joe Exotic and how he lost himself to a character of his own creation,” according to THR. It will be Cage’s first TV role.