Eric Goode, the filmmaker behind Tiger King and Chimp Crazy, is back on HBO with a new five-part documentary series about the illegal reptile trafficking trade. Monsters of God premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. on Thursday, August 6 (The Hollywood Reporter, 2026-08-05).

The series centres on Tommy Crutchfield and Hank Molt, two men the documentary describes as having birthed the illegal reptile trade — and who share a longstanding rivalry (The Hollywood Reporter, 2026-08-05). HBO's own page for the series characterises the exotic animal smuggling world Goode enters as a billion-dollar global network (HBO).

Goode is a documentarian and animal rights activist whose track record in this space runs deep. He co-directed Tiger King — the 2020 Netflix sensation about big-cat breeders in the United States — with Rebecca Chaiklin, and in 2024 he directed Chimp Crazy, a four-part HBO series about people who own and traffic exotic primates (The Hollywood Reporter, 2026-08-05; HBO). With Monsters of God, he shifts the lens from big cats and primates to reptiles, and from domestic breeders to an international smuggling pipeline.

Goode serves as both director and executive producer of the new series. The executive producer roster includes Jeremy McBride, Harry Go, Emily Osborne, Nicole Stott, Ronald Bronstein, Eli Bush, Josh Safdie, and Kevin Turen. Harrison Kreiss and Marissa Torres Ericson are co-executive producers, and the producer credits list Tom Petersen, James Liu, Lissa Rivera, Callie Barlow, Charles Divak, Adrienne Gits, and Daniel Johnson. On HBO's side, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, and Tina Nguyen serve as executive producers (HBO).

The presence of Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein among the executive producers links the project to the independent film world — Safdie co-directed Uncut Gems (2019) with his brother Benny, and Bronstein collaborated on that film's screenplay. Their involvement signals HBO's investment in the series as a prestige documentary commission rather than a quick viral grab.

For viewers, the appeal is straightforward: a five-part run on a premium network, a filmmaker with a proven instinct for finding characters inside subcultures most people never see, and a subject — wildlife trafficking — that sits at the intersection of crime, conservation, and spectacle. Whether Monsters of God lands with the cultural force of Tiger King is a question the ratings and the audience will answer once the episodes begin rolling out.