A Joe Exotic documentary from prolific documentarian Louis Theroux is in development. The BBC has announced that Theroux will produce a feature-length documentary on Joseph Maldonado-Passage AKA Joe Exotic that has the tentative title Louis Theroux: The Cult of Joe Exotic.
Theroux met Exotic 10 years ago when he was making a documentary called Most Dangerous Pets. “Heading back to Oklahoma, Theroux will explore what has happened since, with the big cat man now residing in a federal prison, having been found guilty of a murder-for-hire plot and multiple animal cruelty charges,” reads a line from the description (via THR).
Theroux said the story of Joe Exotic is “one of those quintessentially American stories,” featuring a cast of characters that are almost too larger-than-life to be real.
“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,” the filmmaker said. “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.”
The BBC’s new documentary doesn’t have a release date yet. It’s one of many new projects focused on Joe Exotic in the works–another one for Amazon has Nicolas Cage playing Exotic. In another production, SNL’s Kate McKinnon will play Carole Baskin.
For more, check out GameSpot’s guide to every character in Tiger King, ranked in order of how generally terrible they are.
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