‘Tiger King’ Producers Take On Bored Ape Yacht Club?

Business

on the money

Of Lydia Moynihan

March 9, 2023 | 16:03

Crypto and NFT insiders are getting interview requests for a new documentary about the Bored Ape Yacht Club — and they’re being told the upcoming film is being made by the producers behind “Tiger King,” sources told On The Money.

It is unclear when the documentary about BAYC – a prominent producer of so-called NFTs, or non-fungible tokens that have sold for astronomical sums – will be released. However, crypto insiders say they are receiving emails indicating that it is actively being filmed.

“This is the final nail in the NFT coffin – a sign that cryptomania is officially over,” said one crypto skeptic.

More filmmakers are clearly ready to cash in on crypto mayhem. An insider told On The Money another is working on a documentary about the Crypto Punks NFT store. Netflix has also commissioned a documentary about a couple involved in a crypto heist.

Meanwhile, some crypto enthusiasts fear the Bored Apes documentary will encourage even more bad behavior.

While Bored Apes is best known for its overpriced NFTs — at its peak a collection of 107 NFTs sold for $24.4 million — it has recently come under scrutiny for alleged racist imagery and alleged “neo-Nazi dog whistles.”

Bored Apes even has an FTX spin-off: Sam Bankman-Fried, through Alameda Research, invested an estimated $50 million in Yuga Labs.

“They’re following the Bored Apes scandal because they want it to go as crazy as possible,” a crypto source who received an interview request told The Post. “They want this to be theatrical, and they want to make a lot of money.”

Tiger King was produced by Goode Films; a spokesperson for Goode Films did not return a request for comment.

“Tiger King” had 34 million viewers in the first 10 days of its release and more than 64 million viewers overall, according to a recent estimate. The sequel, “Tiger King 2,” debuted at No. 2 on Netflix’s most-watched list.

Despite the huge success of Tiger King, the filmmakers were criticized for giving a platform to Joe Exotic, who was called “the Charles Manson of animal cruelty”.

“‘Tiger King’ was not ethical — they told people, ‘Act crazy and get famous,'” Todd Fine told The Post. “I don’t want big producers and companies to let this go on just to get more footage … Nazism is not a joke.”