More People Watched 'Tiger King' Than 'Stranger Things 2'
Tiger King continues its strange reign. In the last month, the series has become the go-to watch for all of us poor chumps stuck inside. It's the ultimate in quarantine viewing – a weird, shocking docuseries about truly terrible people, and we all apparently can't get enough of it. And a new report states that Tiger King has become one of Netflix's biggest hits – drawing an even bigger audience than Stranger Things 2.
How big a hit is Tiger King? It's Stranger Things big. In fact, it's bigger than Stranger Things, at least according to Variety. They're reporting that the buzzed-about Netflix docuseries found a "U.S. TV audience of 34.3 unique viewers within the first 10 days of its release (March 20-29), according to Nielsen estimates." That's more than Stranger Things 2, which had 31.2 million unique viewers in its first 10 days on Netflix. It also came very close to beating Stranger Things 3, which had 36.3 million viewers over its first 10 days.
The Variety story also points out that when Tiger King debuted on March 20, it didn't exactly set the world on fire, in terms of viewers, taking in an "average minute audience of 280,000 U.S viewers and reached 741,000 unique viewers." But in the days to come, buzz surrounding the series – and how flat-out bonkers it is – helped it build a bigger audience. And Netflix says it's been their #1 most popular title in the United States for the last two weeks.
The series, which has the eye-catching subtitle Murder, Mayhem and Madness, follows "Joe Exotic, a mulleted, gun-toting polygamist and country western singer who presides over an Oklahoma roadside zoo. Charismatic but misguided, Joe and an unbelievable cast of characters including drug kingpins, conmen, and cult leaders all share a passion for big cats, and the status and attention their dangerous menageries garner. But things take a dark turn when Carole Baskin, an animal activist and owner of a big cat sanctuary, threatens to put them out of business, stoking a rivalry that eventually leads to Joe's arrest for a murder-for-hire plot, and reveals a twisted tale where the only thing more dangerous than a big cat is its owner. "
Rumor has it that a new episode of the show is going to debut this week – although there's been no confirmation of that. There's also a "sequel" in the works at ID. Oh, and there's a TV adaptation with Kate McKinnon on the horizon, too. In other words, the Tiger King craze is just getting started.