Nicholas Cage’s drunk dragon is gathering up his empties and moving over to Paramount+ with the news that the one-time Amazon adaptation has found a new home.
Deadline reports that Highfire, an adaptation of Artemis Fowl author Eion Colfer’s adult fantasy novel will still have the Academy Award winning Cage providing the voice of the titular dragon, but that the series is now in the works at Paramount+.
Described as True Detective meets Pete’s Dragon (find me a better pitch than that), Highfire is being written by Get Shorty’s Davey Holmes, and will be a mix of CG and live-action. Here’s the official logline for the show:
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.
Cage hasn’t had much luck with his potential Amazon small-screen ventures having seen his Joe Exotic series scrapped, but here’s hoping this one fires up quickly over at Paramount. Next up for Cage is Dracula origin story Renfield and Western one-two Butcher’s Crossing and The Old Way.
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