Don’t get your hopes up for Amazon’s take on Tiger King‘s Joe Exotic. Variety has learned from would-be show star Nicolas Cage that Amazon has scrapped the series. While the scripts were “excellent,” according to Cage, Amazon reportedly felt the project had become “past tense” after taking too long to formulate. The company had lost its chance to capitalize on the Netflix show’s success, to put it another way.
Amazon declined to comment. NBCUniversal’s Peacock service is believed to still have its own Tiger King project in the works, with Kate McKinnon starring as Carole Baskin.
It’s not a surprising decision. Tiger King surged in popularity thanks both to its how-can-this-be-real subject matter and its debut in late March 2020, right as many pandemic lockdowns began. It could have been difficult to recapture that zeitgeist. There’s also the matter of riffing on a rival service’s show. Amazon might not have been keen to advertise for Netflix, even if its own series garnered critical acclaim.