News Analysis India

Tag: Joe Exotic

  • Amazon scraps Joe Exotic series starring Nicolas Cage

    By PTI
    LOS ANGELES: Hollywood star Nicolas Cage has revealed that he will no longer play Joe Exotic, the subject of the hit documentary series “Tiger King”, in a new scripted show which is not moving forward at Amazon Studios.

    The project would have marked the first regular television role for the Oscar winner, who was also attached to serve as executive producer on the potential show.

    According to Cage, the series did not come to fruition at the streamer as Amazon felt the interest in the story had started fading away.

    “We should clear the record. I read two excellent scripts, which I did think were excellent, but I think Amazon ultimately felt that it was material that had become past tense because it took so long for it to come together. They felt at one point that it was lightning in a bottle, but that point has since faded into the distance and it’s no longer relevant,” the 57-year-old actor told Variety.

    Sources close to the situation say the project, produced by Imagine and CBS Studios, maybe shopped to other outlets.

    Amazon declined to comment on the status of the Joe Exotic series.

    Joseph Maldonado-Passage, better known as Joe Exotic, was the subject of the popular “Tiger King”, documentary series from Netflix.

    A former Oklahoma tiger-zoo owner, Joe Exotic is serving a 22-year prison sentence for his role in a murder-for-hire plot against animal rights activist Carole Baskin, who was trying to shut down his big-cat operation.

    Another series on “Tiger King” story is under development at the streamer Peacock, with Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mitchell attached to star.

    Cage is currently earning praise for his performance as a truffle hunter who goes searching for his pig after she is kidnapped in first-time feature writer-director Michael Sanrosksi’s “Pig”, which opens on Friday, July 16, 2021, at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival.

  • William Fichtner to replace Dennis Quaid in Joe Exotic

    By Express News Service
    Actor William Fichtner will replace actor Dennis Quaid to play Rick Kirkham in the upcoming series Joe Exotic. Quaid, who was previously announced as the series lead, had to step away due to scheduling conflicts. Fichtner will join the previously announced series leads Kate McKinnon, John Cameron Mitchell, Brian Van Holt, Sam Keeley, and Natt Wolff.

    Joe Exotic is a story adapted from Tiger King’s Wondery Podcast of the same name that centers on Carole Baskin, a big cat enthusiast, who learns that Joe “Exotic” Schreibvogel, a fellow exotic animal lover, is breeding and using his big cats for profit. When she sets out to shut down his venture, it incites into a quickly escalating rivalry. However, when Carole’s checkered past comes back to haunt,  Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy.

    McKinnon, Cameron Mitchell, Van Holt, Keeley, and Wolff, will play Carole Baskin, Joe Exotic, John Reinke, John Finlay, and Travis Maldonado, respectively. The show has tapped Justin Tipping to direct the first four episodes.

    Etan Frankel will serve as writer and executive producer under his overall deal with UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group. McKinnon executive produces along with Wondery’s Hernan Lopez, Marshall Lewy, and Aaron Hart. The show will be produced by UCP.

  • BBC Two developing Joe Exotic documentary

    By PTI
    LOS ANGELES: Joseph Maldonado-Passage, who rose to prominence as Joe Exotic of the hit Netflix series “Tiger King”, is now set to be the subject of a new feature-length documentary at BBC Two.

    According to The Hollywood Reporter, BAFTA-winning presenter-journalist Louis Theroux will explore how the zookeeper became a media phenomenon after the 2020 true-crime series.

    Exotic has been found guilty of a murder-for-hire plot and multiple animal cruelty charges.

    His popularity found him a well-funded campaign team who were attempting to win him a presidential pardon.

    The documentary has the working title “Louis Theroux: The Cult of Joe Exotic” and Theroux said this story is “quintessentially American” stories, taking place in the heartland of Oklahoma, with a cast of characters almost too colourful and larger-than-life to be believed.

    Interestingly, Theroux first met Exotic whilst making his documentary “America’s Most Dangerous Pets” a decade ago.

    “I spent eight or nine days filming at the park back in 2011, over the course of three separate visits. I’d forgotten how much we shot until I went back into the footage during the lockdown.”

    “It’s extraordinary how much was there. Since then the story just got stranger and bigger, and in going back at the end of last year I uncovered a real-life drama that took me in directions I never could have expected,” he said.

    Clare Sillery, the BBC’s head of commissioning, documentaries, history and religion, said the upcoming special will be full to the brim with never-before-seen footage and brand new interviews with those on all sides of the Joe Exotic story.

    “In this follow-up to Louis’ revelatory first-look at the life of Joe Exotic in ‘America’s Most Dangerous Pets’, viewers will be taken even more deeply into the weird world of one of America’s most notorious figures,” Sillery added.

    Meanwhile, Nicolas Cage is set to play Exotic in an upcoming CBS drama series picked up by Amazon Studios.