Will tabloid true-crime lightning strike twice? Netflix is about to find out, as the company announced Thursday that “Tiger King 2” is coming to the service sometime before the end of 2021.
It’s the first of five new true-crime docuseries heading to Netflix over the next year, which the company says will focus on “cons, scams and cautionary tales.”
The streamer was shy on specifics about “Tiger King 2,” though directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin are returning along with producers Chris Smith, Fisher Stevens, Goode and Chaiklin. The series will likely continue the wild tale of Joe Exotic — and his ultimately fruitless attempts to win a pardon from former President Donald Trump — and Carole Baskin, the rival private zookeeper whom Exotic was convicted or trying to have murdered.
The original “Tiger King” became an instant cultural sensation thanks in part to enormous good luck of timing: It dropped on March 20, 2020, just nine days after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and lockdown orders across the country led millions of people to spend hours and hours at home with nothing to do but watch television.
In the first 10 days after its release, an amazing 34 million households watched and “Tiger King” became one of the defining pop culture moments of the early pandemic. To date, a total of 64 million households have seen it. Whether interest in the sequel will be as strong remains to be seen, of course, but here’s hoping the filmmakers located some previously unheard horrible songs.
The specific release date has not been announced.
Next after “Tiger King 2” is “The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman” in January 2022. Directed by Sam Benstead and Gareth Johnson and produced by Bart Layton and Rebecca North, the three-part series relates the tale of “one of the world’s most audacious conmen who was convicted in 2005 for stealing fortunes and destroying multiple lives,” with effects that reach “into the president day.
Then in February 2022, director Felicity Morris’ “The Tinder Swindler” will follow “a prolific conman who posed as a billionaire playboy on Tinder, and the women who set out to bring him down.” It’s also produced by Layton, alongside Sam Starbuck, Jeff Gaspin and Eric Levi, Stuart Ford and Lourdes Diaz.
Following that, director Luke Sewell’s “Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King” will explore “a group of investors turned sleuths” who attempt to “unlock the suspicious death of cryptocurrency multimillionaire Gerry Cotten and the missing $250 million they believe he stole from them.” It’s produced by Sophie Jones and Morgan Matthews.
And finally, there’s “Bad Vegan.” Per the show’s logline, “Celebrity restaurateur Sarma Melngailis becomes the ‘Vegan Fugitive’ when she’s conned out of millions by a man who convinces her that he can expand her food empire and make her beloved pit bull immortal — as long as she never questions his increasingly bizarre requests.”
“Trust No One” and “Bad Vegan” have not yet received release dates, but both are slated for sometime in 2022.