The Tiger King craze continues: Surviving Joe Exotic documentary set at Animal Planet
It's been nearly four months since the premiere of Tiger King on Netflix and we still can't escape Joe Exotic. But a new documentary coming to Animal Planet later this month is less about the exotic animal zookeeper from Oklahoma and more about the animals held at his Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park.
Surviving Joe Exotic — set to air on Saturday, July 25 at 10 p.m. ET — aims to put more of a spotlight on these creatures, such as visually impaired tigers Kryxis and Kadira, whose vision was surgically restored at the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Indiana after being rescued from Exotic's zoo. The documentary special will also share stories about the animals who found new homes, like Chobe and Kariba, lions left traumatized by the pain of inbreeding who were relocated to the Wildcat Ridge Sanctuary in Oregon.
The special also features one of the last interviews with Exotic, shot in 2018, months before he was jailed on murder-for-hire charges. A clip (shown above) of the never-before-seen footage of Exotic was originally recorded at his zoo for Animal Planet's Wolves and Warriors.
Other familiar faces from Netflix's Tiger King — including Saff Saffery, who lost an arm to one of Exotic's tigers—will also appear in Surviving Joe Exotic.
Gretchen Palek, Shawn Witt, Dave Luce, Karen Kunkel Young, and Keith Hoffman serve as executive producers. Sarah Russell serves as supervising producer.
Multiple other Exotic-adjacent projects are also in development. Nicolas Cage will portray the man in a new TV series. Separately, Kate McKinnon is set to star as Carole Baskin, the rival zookeeper Exotic tried to have killed, in a miniseries. ID also announced in April a limited docuseries focusing on the disappearance of Baskin's husband.
In real life, developments continue to come to light about the saga of Exotic, who's still serving a prison sentence. Authorities searched his animal park after The Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures team found evidence that there might be human remains on site while filming on location.
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