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‘Tiger King 2’ confirmed, coming to Netflix this year

Credit: NETFLIX

(NEXSTAR) — Netflix announced on Thursday “Tiger King,” the global phenomenon that premiered last March, will return with season 2 later this year.

In the announcement, Netflix promised “more madness and mayhem” in the new season.


“Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” followed zookeeper Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, and captivated audiences during the first few weeks of COVID-19 lockdowns.

According to Netflix, the original series was watched by over 64 million households in the first four weeks following its March 2020 premiere.

In July, a federal appeals court ruled Joe Exotic should get a shorter prison sentence for his role in a murder-for-hire plot and violating federal wildlife laws. He was sentenced in January 2020 to 22 years in federal prison after being convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill animal rights activist Carole Baskin.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver found that the trial court wrongly treated those two convictions separately in calculating his prison term under sentencing guidelines.

The panel agreed with Maldonado-Passage that the court should have treated them as one conviction at sentencing because they both involved the same goal of killing Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for big cats in Florida.

According to the ruling, the court should have calculated his advisory sentencing range to be between 17 1/2 years and just under 22 years in prison rather than between just under 22 years and 27 years in prison. The court ordered the trial court to re-sentence Maldonado-Passage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.