A judge has denied a request from activist Carole Baskin to issue a temporary restraining order barring Netflix from airing Tiger King 2.
As Timcast previously reported, Baskin filed a lawsuit against the streaming giant and Royal Goode productions in Florida federal court on Monday.
Baskin also filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order that would bar them “from any use of film footage of the Baskins and the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary in Tiger King 2 or in any related promotion or advertising.”
Multiple stars of the show have told Timcast that they are expecting the new season to take a deep dive into solving the mystery of Baskin’s former husband Don Lewis, who allegedly just vanished — according to the big cat activist. Joe Exotic has long claimed that Baskin fed her husband to their tigers, even making a music video dramatizing what he believed happened.
Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington issued an order and responded to the request on Monday, far ahead of Baskin’s request for a decision by November 16.
“While the Court understands the Baskins’ frustration, it does not appear that inclusion of Defendants’ footage of the Baskins will cause any immediate harm that cannot be compensated with monetary damages,” she explained. “Importantly, the Court merely finds that the Baskins are not entitled to the extraordinary remedy of a temporary restraining order, which would be entered before Defendants have had an adequate opportunity to respond.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Baskin, along with her husband Howard, claims the footage breaches appearance releases dated April 30, 2016 and April 3, 2018. She says she was initially approached in 2014 about participating in what Royal Goode described as a ‘Blackfish style documentary to expose the big cat trade.’ They agreed and were filmed for a total of 10 days over five years.”
“Far from being a documentary motion picture that seeks to expose the illicit trade of big cat private ownership, breeding and cub petting, Tiger King 1 is a seven (7) episode series focused primarily upon portrayal of Joe Exotic as a sympathetic victim and Carole as the villain,” writes attorney Frank Jakes in the complaint.
The complaint further states that her portrayal in the first season led to Baskin receiving hate mail, harassment and death threats and they had to suspend tours of their so-called sanctuary for big cats over fear of violence.
“After Tiger King 1, Royal Goode Productions again approached the Baskins “to clear the air” and, presumably, to entice them into being filmed for the sequel called Tiger King 2,” writes Jakes in the motion for emergency relief, which is embedded below. “The Baskins refused, believing that the Appearance Releases prevented any further use of their film footage by Royal Goode Productions and Netflix in any sequel. Then, on October 27, 2021, Netflix released its Official Tiger King 2 Trailer. To the Baskins’ dismay, the trailer prominently displayed film footage of the Baskins and made clear that Tiger King 2 would do the same.”
The new season of Tiger King is scheduled to be released on November 17.
