The HBO Original Monsters of God will premiere Thursday, August 6 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, according to recent press release by parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. The five-part documentary miniseries, which chronicles the bizarre and shockingly cutthroat world of illegal reptile smuggling and the high-octane personalities it attracts, will release in five parts on a weekly basis.
If that premise sounds familiar, there’s a good reason for that. Monsters of God is helmed by filmmaker Eric Goode, the same conservationist responsible for 2020’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, which introduced audiences to dueling feline conservationists Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic. Tiger King almost instantly became one of Netflix’s most successful miniseries, due in no small part to its fortuitous release on March 20th, 2020 — just around when most Americans became trapped in their own homes by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Variety, the series amassed a whopping 34.3 million unique viewers in the States alone in its first ten days on the platform.
Since then, Goode has directed Chimp Crazy for HBO, a primate-themed companion to Tiger King that undergoes an equally shocking criminal escalation in its final episodes. He also co-directed two more seasons of Tiger King; although since Season 1 ends with Joe Exotic in prison for attempting to arrange Carole’s murder, these follow-ups were substantially more limited in scope, focusing more on the cultural reaction to itself than anything else. Monsters of God, then, signals a return to Goode’s roots as he once again explores the dark underbelly of a seemingly innocuous animal trade.
Per Warner Bros. Discovery’s synopsis, Goode “follows his first love – reptiles – into the dark and gonzo underworld of exotic animal smuggling. In this global network, everyone is chasing the ultimate prize, whether it be owning the rarest of species, claiming the biggest fortunes, or taking down the most elusive criminals. (…) With unprecedented access to the major players, from traffickers to animal enthusiasts to federal agents, Goode unravels a web of larger-than-life characters who run a complex international crime ring. A thrilling exposé of a hidden underworld, Monsters of God warns of the devastating impact of the insatiable desire for the forbidden, and how this mad obsession is pushing some species to the brink of extinction.”
Along with the announcement of the release date, HBO has released the first trailer for Monsters of God, available below. And if past experience is anything to go by, the reptiles won’t be Goode’s only cold-blooded subjects.