EXCLUSIVE: Nicolas Cage’s vodka-loving dragon has a new home.
Deadline understands that Highfire, the TV series based on Eoin Colfer’s adult thriller novel, is now in the works at Paramount+. In 2020, we revealed that the project, which will see The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent star voice the lead character, was in the works at Amazon.
The True Detective-meets-Pete’s Dragon project is being adapted for television by Davey Holmes, the creator of Epix’s Get Shorty TV series. MGM is the studio. Holmes and Cage executive produce alongside Andrew Mittman of 1.21 via his exclusive production deal at MGM.
The genre-bending, live-action series Highfire is a gritty crime-thriller with doses of magical realism. Its central character, Highfire (Cage) is a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon who lives an isolated existence in the bayous of Louisiana.
Paramount+ declined to comment.
Once upon a time, dragons ruled the earth and Lord Highfire ruled the dragons from his eyrie. But this is not once upon a time, this is now, and now all Lord Highfire rules is his shack in Louisiana’s Honey Island Swamp. Highfire has become plain old ‘Vern’ and, by day, he hides out among the alligators, watches cable-TV and drinks obscene amounts of vodka to pass the time. It isn’t much of a life but he’s alive to live it, and Vern is prepared do whatever it takes – even if its violent – to preserve his own hide. When Vern’s world collides with a human teen named Squib, who becomes mixed up in some trouble while running booze for the local mob, their mutual struggle for survival becomes entangled in the most unlikely of friendships.
The project would mark Cage’s first major scripted television series after Amazon’s Joe Exotic project, in which he was set to play the outlandish lead, was shelved. Cage’s recent credits include Pig and upcoming films including The Old Way, Butcher’s Crossing and Renfield.
Cage is repped by WME, Stride Management and Attorney Patrick Knapp of Goodman Genow. Holmes, who has also worked on series including Shameless, Awake and In Treatment, is repped by Felker Toczek.