It’s been a year since the true-crime documentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness premiered on Netflix, and to celebrate the show’s anniversary, the streaming service is hosting a live Tiger King musical on TikTok.
Aptly titled Tiger Queens, the musical will star RuPaul’s Drag Race alums William as Joe Exotic, Kim Chi as Carole Baskin, Heidi N Closet as “The Tiger,” and special surprise guests. It will take place on Sunday, March 28th on Netflix’s official TikTok account.
And to celebrate Tiger King’s one year anniversary, we’re hosting Tiger Queens: The Tiger King Musical LIVE on TikTok next week!! pic.twitter.com/6cSt5VDans
— Netflix (@netflix) March 20, 2021
Netflix announced the musical last Saturday in a tweet thread that looked back on how Tiger King debuted on the streamer at the time when most of the world had entered lockdowns in late March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Netflix tweeted that Tiger King “was like nothing we’d ever seen before, nothing quite made sense, and we didn’t exactly know how it would end.” And even though many individuals were literally alone during the onset of the global health crisis last year, Tiger King became that one fun thing that people were able to share together. “It gave us an excuse to laugh, gasp, and stare in shock at something that wasn’t the news for a second,” the streamer added of the popular docuseries.
Directed by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, Tiger King centers on the contentious fight between big cat collector Joe Exotic and big cat conservationist Carole Baskin. Baskin claimed that Exotic’s breeding programs, zoo, and practice of charging visitors to pet lion or tiger cubs were abusive to the big cats. Exotic, on the other hand, alleged that conditions at Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue in Florida were sub-par and that Baskin was deliberately damaging his sources of income by discouraging potential clients. The friction between the two reached its climax when Exotic attempted to hire someone to murder Baskin, resulting in his arrest and later conviction.
People’s interest in Exotic and Baskin after Tiger King has resulted in a number of subsequent media. For instance, the limited series Joe Exotic: Tigers, Lies and Cover-Up premiered last September on Investigation Discovery. In the same month, a TV special titled Joe Exotic: Before He Was King also aired on Discovery Channel.
Additionally, a new, feature-length documentary about Exotic is in the works from BBC documentarian Louis Theroux. Currently titled Louis Theroux: The Cult of Joe Exotic, the project will revisit the various events that have unfolded in the world of exotic-animal ownership in the decade since Theroux last chronicled Exotic.
Meanwhile, on the scripted front, a limited series based on the second season of Wondery’s Over My Dead Body podcast is in development, with Kate McKinnon set to portray Baskin. It is set to roll out across three different NBCU entertainment platforms: broadcast network NBC, basic cable USA Network, and streaming service Peacock.
Nicolas Cage will also star as Exotic in an eight-episode TV series based on Leif Reigstad’s Texas Monthly article Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild. Last September, the project was officially picked up for development at Amazon Prime Video.
Lastly, Ryan Murphy is also in talks to produce a film or limited series for Netflix with Rob Lowe starring as Exotic.