Netflix’s Truly Bizarre Docuseries ‘Tiger King’ Could Be Getting a Season 2
The seven-part docuseries, Tiger King, became a surprise hit when it dropped on Netflix over the weekend. It transported viewers out of isolation and took them on a wild ride through the world of exotic animal ownership, with rival zoo owners, assassins, stray spouses, and more big cats than you can shake a stick at.
It made for compulsive viewing, and when the series came to an all-too-sudden end, it left fans with a number of unanswered questions. So many, in fact, that some viewers hope Netflix will commission a second season of the show and revisit the frankly unhinged world of Joe Exotic.
And according to the creators of Tiger King, they already more than enough material to make additional episodes.
"To be continued," director and producer Rebecca Chaiklin told Entertainment Weekly. "I mean, yes we have a crazy amount of footage and it's a story that's still unfolding. We're not sure yet, but there could be a follow-up on this story because there's a lot that's still unfolding in it, and it'll be just as dramatic and just as colorful as what has unfolded these past few years."
In the same interview, Chaiklin and her co-director, Eric Goode, addressed theories that the (genuinely mind-boggling) events of the documentary had been embellished or taken out of context to tell the most sensational story. The short answer being: no, it really was that weird.
"As you can see in the series, there's a lot of archival material," Chaiklin said. "And unlike other documentaries, our archival materials are almost 100 percent from people's personal archives. Which was a dream as filmmakers, that our subjects were so obsessed with filming themselves. So we did, and we paid them far less than we would if we had to buy something from Getty or CNN or ABC. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and it would actually be unethical not to do that. You didn't have to exaggerate in this world, it was as colorful. You couldn't have made this stuff up. No exaggerations needed. It's categorically untrue."
Meanwhile Eric Goode, Chaiklin's co-director and producer, says it is "categorically false" that they paid interviewees to exaggerate stories for the sake of the show, as some viewers have speculated. "We only compensated a few people when they were offering us their life rights, and this was because part of the way into the story was after Joe was arrested, a lot of media piled on to tell the story," he explained. "So we did secure life rights for a few characters, and we also compensated people for content and the rare location fee. But other than that, we did not pay people. They'll be a lot of stories and accusations out there now."
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