Nicolas Cage Will Play Vodka-Drinking Dragon Detective in Highfire for Paramount+

Nicolas Cage will be following up his hugely successful appearance in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent at Paramount+, with his voice role as the lead of Highfire, an adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s novel that is described as True Detective meets Pete’s Dragon. Having originally been planned as an Amazon Prime TV series, Deadline reported that the project has now moved homes and is instead in the works at Paramount to be exclusively premiered on their streaming platform.

Having been in development since 2020, the Covid pandemic has clearly been one of the reasons that the series about a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon detective has been stalled for so long. In that time, it seems that Amazon have decided that their priorities lie elsewhere and Paramount have been quick to snap up the series. Cage will be executive producer on the show, along with Davey Holmes, who was responsible for Epix’s Get Shorty TV series and is adapting Highfire for TV.

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The synopsis of Colfer’s novel, which will be providing the main story for the series, reads: “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.”

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Nicolas Cage Is In the Middle of A Renaissance

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Having spent almost a decade making mostly direct-to-video features, Cage’s careers has taken a huge upturn recently. While he was set to star as Joe Exotic in a Tiger King based series that never happened, Cage has recently received critical acclaim for his performance in last year’s Pig, and for playing a fictional version of himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

Cage has recently been filming for his role as Dracula in the latest Universal Monsters spin-off movie, Renfield. Cage will star as the most famous vampire alongside Nicholas Hoult, who will be playing the title role in the darkly comical take on the man who becomes Dracula’s right-hand man. That film is expected to be released next year.

Along with his voice role in Highfire, Cage has a number of other projects in the works, including The Old Way and Butcher’s Crossing. With the possibility of a third National Treasure movie also still floating around as a constant rumor, it looks like Cage fans have plenty to look forward to in the coming years as the actor enjoys his new wave of popularity.

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