Nicolas Cage will play Joe Exotic in a new Tiger King scripted TV series. The eight-episode series is based on the Texas Monthly article Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild by Leif Reigstad. It will be produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios, with American Vandal showrunner Dan Lagana serving as writer and showrunner. It looks like the world of Joe Exotic is about to get a whole lot bigger and weirder.

The story centers around Joe Schreibvogel, aka 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." In other words, this new series is going to be pretty crazy and will deliver some insight into how Exotic ended up in Netflix's Tiger King.

As for Nicolas Cage, the Tiger King scripted series will be his first-ever role for TV. The Academy Award winning actor was actually at the top of a few polls asking which actor should take on the role of Joe Exotic in a scripted series or big screen project. David Spade was also at the top of the list and Exotic himself liked the idea of Spade doing it, but he preferred having Brad Pitt in the role. However, Pitt might be too busy these days playing Dr. Fauci on Saturday Night Live. Seeing Cage take on the role of Joe Exotic is going to be pretty interesting, to say the least.

The upcoming show with Nicolas Cage on board to star is actually the second scripted series based on the insane world of Tiger King. The first scripted series will feature Kate McKinnon as the infamous Carole Baskin. However, that particular series is still looking for a writer at this time. The two shows are completely unrelated, though it would be pretty amazing to see Cage and McKinnon go head to head in a scripted series together. Cage has yet to comment on his upcoming role, which will more than likely be massive.

Paul Young is set to executive produce the new Tiger King scripted series through the Make Good Content banner. Imagine's Brian Grazer and Samie Kim Falvey will executive produce for Imagine. Nicolas Cage will executive produce via Saturn Films. Scott Brown and Megan Creydt will executive produce for Texas Monthly. Imagine's James Seidman and Natalie Berkus are overseeing the project for the company. There is currently no production start date for the untitled series, but they should try and get everything together before everybody forgets all about Mr. Joe Exotic and is crazy group of friends. Variety was the first to announce that Nicolas Cage will be taking on the role of Joe Exotic.