Nicolas Cage is set to voice the lead in an upcoming TV adaptation of Highfire, an adult-oriented fantasy-action-comedy-thriller from Artemis Fowl writer Eoin Colfer. The series will be developed for television by Davey Holmes, the creator and executive producer of Epix’s Get Shorty TV series, and so someone who knows a little something about blending humor and action. Colfer, ever the genre-bender himself, also penned the only official installment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series that was not written by creator Douglas Adams. The show hails from MGM/UA’s TV studio, and will be a live-action series with a VFX main character.
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That character? A vodka-swilling dragon who likes to go by “Vern” and watch Flashdance on Netflix rather than striking fear into the hearts of anybody. Once known as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie, the series sees Vern teaming up with Cajun swamp rat named Squib, who offers to run his errands for him in exchange for protection from a dirty cop who has a thing for Squib’s mother.
Here’s how Deadline, who broke the story, describes the TV adaptation: “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.”
Highfire, which is set to come to Amazon, promises to be a strange, fun ride; some of the publisher’s favorite pull quotes peg it as True Detective mixed with, variously, Pete’s Dragon, Swamp Thing, or some other creature feature. If all of this sounds a bit like it might be a reverse of Happy!, the comic and Syfy series that featuerd a miserable human protagonist fighting crime with a lovable imaginary friend, that probably is not too far from the truth.
