Hungry for more expired meat? Netflix has announced Tiger King 2, a sequel to the viral doc that captured our early-lockdown imaginations, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. Directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin return, though it’s not yet revealed whom the documentary will follow this time around. The self-described “Tiger King,†roadside-zoo owner Joe Exotic, is currently serving his 22-year sentence for his role in a plot to murder rival Big Cat Rescue activist Carole Baskin. Despite the world thinking she “killed her husband, whacked him,†thanks to the documentary, Baskin turned her 15 minutes of fame into a catwalk by appearing on Dancing With the Stars last season. In 2020, a judge granted Baskin ownership of Exotic’s wild-animal park, where most of the doc’s “WTF†moments took place, to satisfy the $1 million judgment she won against him. In August 2020, she sold it — under the condition that the new owners would not use it as a zoo or create any new business on the property that refers to Tiger King. Baskin declined to be on the reunion special hosted by Joel McHale, which caught up with fan favorites like Jeff and Lauren Lowe, Rick Kirkham, John Reinke, Kelci “Saff†Saffery, John Finlay, Josh Dial, and Erik Cowie. Cowie, who worked with Joe Exotic for five years and hated being compared to Vince Neil because Mötley Crüe is “too plastic,†later testified against his boss. He died on September 7 this year. He was 52.
The new documentary was announced with four other upcoming films and series: The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman (January 2022); The Tinder Swindler (February 2022); Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King (2022); and Bad Vegan (2022). Meanwhile, Peacock is planning a scripted series starring John Cameron Mitchell as Exotic and Kate McKinnon as Baskin. Tiger King 2 is out later this year, hopefully with an exclusive interview with Britney Spears’s 2001 VMAs snake.
Updated September 26 at 12:02 p.m.: At Netflix’s “Tudum†event on Saturday, the streamer announced that Tiger King 2 will drop on November 17, teasing the news with a short trailer. “We’ve only scratched the surface,†a caption reads, before we see a close up on a childhood photo of Joe Exotic, some Tiger King bling, and a new clip of Exotic making a phone call from prison. Rawr.