Oh how the tables have turned for the highly anticipated Joe Exotic series detailing the many wild escapades of Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin. Originally set to air on both the USA network and NBC, NBCUniversal reversed that plan, announcing today that the series will now be available to watch exclusively on the streaming platform Peacock, as reported by Deadline. 

Starring John Cameron Mitchell (Shrill) as Exotic and Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live) as Baskin, the upcoming series has grabbed hold of public eye as the story of zookeepers in the state of Oklahoma blew up last year. With both the Netflix documentary series Joe Exotic: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, and the Wondery podcast “Joe Exotic: Tiger King,” being released in March of 2020, millions of Americans tuned in to watch in amazement as Exotic and Baskin battled it out to be the top dog. The series exposed the mistreatment of animals in captivity by focusing on the tigers living within both Exotic’s and Baskin’s zoo, but also revealed a complicated web of murder, lies and deceit. 

According to Deadline, the reason for streaming exclusively on Peacock had to do with the nature of the story’s material. After Susan Rovner, the chairman of entertainment content at NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, viewed the scripts for the series, she and her team believed that streaming was the right call. Deadline picked up a statement released by Rovner: “Joe Exotic is shaping up to be a bold and provocative drama and perfectly suited for Peacock, where we can push the envelope and truly bring the story to life in a way that we would be unable to do on broadcast television…Moving Joe Exotic to Peacock exclusively is just one example of the strengths of our new structure, which gives us the ability to let the art dictate the platform and not the other way around.”

The Joe Exotic series is written and executive produced by Ethan Frankel (Get Shorty). McKinnon is also executive producing alongside Hernan Lopez (Dr. Death) Marshall Lewy (Blue State), and Aaron Hart (Over My Dead Body). The director Justin Tipping (Black Monday) is slated to direct four of the series episodes, including the pilot.