Sounds Like Tiger King's Joe Exotic Will Be Played By The Perfect Actor

Ever since the documentary series Tiger King hit Netflix last month, there has been much speculation about who might play the show's main character, incarcerated zookeeper and big cat breeder Joe Exotic, in the inevitable adaptation of his life story. We now have the answer, and it's perfect--Nicolas Cage.

As reported by Variety, Cage will play Joe--real name Joe Maldonado-Passage--in an eight-episode TV series. The show will be produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios, and the showrunner will be Dan Lagana, who previously made the Netflix mockumentary series American Vandal.

While the Joe Exotic show will inevitably be compared to Tiger King, it will actually be adapted from the article titled "Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild," which appeared in Texas Monthly and was optioned by Lagana last year. Variety states that the show 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."

Cage most recently starred in the acclaimed horror movie The Color Out of Space, as well as playing Spider-Man Noir in the hugely successful Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. He's also known for '90s action hits such as Face/Off, The Rock, and Con-Air, as well as Leaving Las Vegas, for which he won an Oscar.

For more, check out GameSpot's guide to every character in Tiger King, ranked in order of how generally terrible they are.