Netflix Sept. 23 announced it is planning a second season of “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” the worldwide true crime docuseries phenomenon about the dysfunctional interconnected society of big cat conservationists that generated 64 million household viewers in the first four weeks after its March 2020 premiere.
Netflix says the second season — “Tiger King 2” — streaming this year would feature “more madness and mayhem” surrounding key players in the first season. Indeed, one of the lead characters of the original series — zookeeper and convicted felon Joseph Maldonado-Passage, a.k.a. “Joe Exotic” — currently sits in a Oklahoma jail serving a 22-year sentence for allegedly paying a hitman to murder competing big cat conservationist Carole Baskin, among other charges.
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The 2018 sentence — not the charges — was vacated by a judge earlier this year, with Exotic set to be resentenced.
“Stories about real crimes have captivated audiences since the dawn of media, from the old days of town criers and tabloids to today’s podcasts and social media,” Adam Del Deo, VP of documentary series, and Lisa Nishimura, VP of documentary and independent films at Netflix, wrote in a blog post. “As we’ve seen since our Emmy Award-winning series ‘Making a Murderer’ first pierced the culture in 2015, documentaries can also meet that curiosity by immersing viewers in a true story to dissect its complexities and make sense of the unexpected.”
Netflix this year bowed docuseries “Heist,” showcasing how ordinary people almost got away with extraordinary cons; “This Is a Robbery” examined a still-unsolved art theft; and “Cocaine Cowboys: Kings of Miami” chronicled the rise and fall of drug kingpins.
Other new series launching in 2022 include:
- “The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman,” which premieres next January, is a three-part series about one of the world’s most audacious con-men, convicted in 2005 for stealing fortunes and destroying multiple lives. Now, in a twist, the series includes the present day, with a desperate family who fear for their mother’s safety.
- “The Tinder Swindler” premieres next February detailing another prolific conman who posed as a billionaire playboy on Tinder, and the women who set out to bring him down.
- “Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King” follows a group of investors turned sleuths as they try to unlock the suspicious death of cryptocurrency multimillionaire Gerry Cotten and the missing $250 million they believe he stole from them.
- “Bad Vegan” showcases celebrity restaurateur Sarma Melngailis, who is allegedly conned out of millions by a man who convinces her he can expand her food empire and make her beloved pit bull immortal — as long as she never questions his increasingly bizarre requests.
