It's Gonna Be Wild: Nicolas Cage Will Star as Joe Exotic in a 'Tiger King' Scripted Series

AP featured image — In this Aug. 28, 2013, file photo, Joseph Maldonado answers a question during an interview at the zoo he runs in Wynnewood, Okla. Federal prosecutors on Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, announced that the zookeeper, also known as “Joe Exotic,” and candidate for governor earlier this year, has been charged in a murder-for-hire scheme alleging he tried to hire someone to kill a Florida woman. Prosecutors allege Maldonado-Passage tried to hire two separate people to kill the woman, who wasn’t harmed. Maldonado-Passage finished third in a three-way Libertarian primary in June. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

For those of you who’ve been pandemically enraptured by the bizarre saga of Joe Exotic and his nemesis Carole Baskin, I bring good news — more is coming, and in a new(?) form: non-reality TV.

A scripted series covering the Tiger King chronicles will be making its way to a small screen near you.

And not only that, but the famed gay, mulleted, country-singing, gun-toting, Carole-obsessed, tiger-exploiting, abusive, controversial lead character will be played by none other than Academy Award-winner Nicolas Cage.

So imagine Joe Exotic combined with some form of this:

This all got started, incidentally, by a write-up in Texas Montly, “Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild.”

As reported by Variety, in June of 2019, CBS TV Studios optioned the article.

Cage’s career hasn’t hit any particular high notes as of late, but the involvement of Ron Howard’s production company Imagine means the project could be put together right.

Incredibly, it’s the second scripted TK venture to be greenlighted. The first will feature Kate McKinnon as cat-lovin’ (and accused gold-digging murderer) Carole.

Tiger King only debuted March 20th, but the Netflix knockout’s developed a laser-focused following and spawned beaucoup memes (a little Cajun French for ya there).

If you’ve missed the streaming juggernaut, you might wanna catch up to the woes of Joseph Maldonado-Passage — former owner/operator Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma — who’s doing 22 years in the joint after being convicted in a murder plot against Carole Baskin of Tampa, Florida’s Big Cat Rescue.

The program’s got it all — bombs, betrayal, body piercing…concubines, conspiracy…man-eating mammals, meth mouth, music, murder…a multi-man marriage and a woman who prefers amputation for its convenience.

Sadly, during his big spotlighted moment, the show’s central figure is stuck behind bars. But he wants to change all that: As noted by Fox Business, via Facebook last month, Joe Exotic asked Trump“for a special investigation or a Presidential Pardon from the Conviction I have Just received.”

The Donald said he’d look into it: