The Tiger King craze is still going strong nearly two months after the Netflix documentary series was released.
The G.W. Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, which was heavily featured in the docuseries, was flocked by hundreds of Tiger King fans after the state lifted its stay-at-home restrictions over the weekend.
Alarmingly, based on the photos obtained by the Daily Mail, most guests were not wearing face masks and social distancing measures were completely ignored.
Formerly owned by Joseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado-Passage, the zoo is now under the ownership of Joe’s former business partner Jeff Lowe and his wife Lauren. The couple took ownership of the animal park after Joe went to jail for plotting the murder of his arch-nemesis Carole Baskin, a big-cat rights activist who accused Joe of abusing and exploiting wild animals. To cash in on its Netflix fame, the zoo has also been renamed to Tiger King Park.
Lowe and Lauren reportedly greeted guests during the zoo’s reopening. Head zookeeper Erik Cowie was also present at the event as well as Allen Glover, whom Exotic hired to kill Baskin. Glover, however, didn’t do so.
The Tiger King craze is expected to continue for a long time as two scripted series inspired by the docuseries are currently in the works.
The first one is based on the Wondery podcast Joe Exotic. Kate McKinnon is set to executive produce the series and is attached to play the role of Carole Baskin.
The other project is an eight-episode scripted series starring Nicolas Cage as Joe Exotic. Based on Leif Reigstad’s Texas Monthly article Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild, the series will follow Joe Exotic who fights to keep his park in Oklahoma even at the risk of losing his sanity.