Louis Theroux to Revisit Joe Exotic in New Documentary for the BBC
If you can’t get enough of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, a.k.a. Joe Exotic, the “Tiger King,” there may be another program to add to your must-watch list.
BBC Two has commissioned a new feature-length special, with the working title Louis Theroux: The Cult of Joe Exotic, from the award-winning filmmaker. Theroux will be returning to America for the firsts since 2019 as he revisits one of his most provocative subjects. The doc will be distributed internationally by BBC Studios, but there’s no word yet as to where those in the United States will be able to find it.
Theroux met Joe when he was making his documentary, America’s Most Dangerous Pets, 10 years ago. This new doc, which will include hours of unseen footage from that previous one, takes him back to Oklahoma; Joe is now in prison after being found guilty of a murder-for-hire plot and multiple animal cruelty charges. He has since become a media phenomenon (many watched Tiger King on Netflix in 2020) and has a well-funded campaign team seeking to get him a presidential pardon.
“Louis sets out to understand who the real Joe Exotic is,” BBC says of the new special. “As he tries to investigate what has happened in the intervening years, he meets old friends from his original documentary, the team trying to get him out of prison and those closest to Joe who have never spoken before.”
“This is one of those quintessentially American stories, taking place in the heartland of Oklahoma, with a cast of characters almost too colourful and larger-than-life to be believed,” Theroux said in a statement. “I spent eight or nine days filming at the park back in 2011, over the course of three separate visits. I’d forgotten how much we shot until I went back into the footage during lockdown. It’s extraordinary how much was there. Since then the story just got stranger and bigger, and in going back at the end of last year I uncovered a real-life drama that took me in directions I never could have expected.”
Let our Tiger King obsession continue!
