Amazon scraps Joe Exotic series starring Nicolas Cage

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.