The bidding for film and TV rights is shaping up to be wild and wooly on an unwritten book about the stunning collapse of FTX cryptocurrency exchange titan Sam Bankman-Fried.
Lewis, the master of channeling complicated financial and statistical data-based stories into hit films — The Big Short, The Blind Side and Moneyball to name three — spent half a year with the nerdy Bankman-Fried when he was flying high and buying stadium naming rights, donating to Democratic candidates and hobnobbing with celebs he hired to endorse his wares like Larry David, Tom Brady, Giselle Bundchen and Steph Curry (they are now being sued). Now, Bankman-Fried is sitting in the Bahamas wondering what went wrong after his service and hedge fund went belly up, with a lotta money reportedly missing and regulators poised to investigate and many investors losing fortunes. Bankman-Fried, worth was pegged just recently as high as $26 billion in paper holdings, appears to be flat broke.
Hollywood wants in after Lewis’ reps at CAA put it out there that Lewis intended to devote his time to the subject and make it his next book. Here’s what Dish hears: Amazon Studios is circling, as is David Heyman with writer Wells Tower and directed David Yates (they teamed on the upcoming Netflix Pain Hustlers), and Netflix said to be circling on behalf of The Social Network director David Fincher, and Sugar23 for Josh Gad. There are others expected to be in the mix when bidding commences shortly. Separately, Scott Burns and Jonathan Glickman’s Panoramic are circling a potential project with New York Timesman Andrew Ross Sorkin, who has closely covered the FTX debacle.
We’ve seen a spate of TV projects on tech chaos including The Dropout, in which Amanda Seyfried won the Emmy for her portrayal of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, the WeWorks saga WeCrashed with Jared Leto, and Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Separately, Sony is in production on the Gamestop stock rise saga Dumb Money, with I, Tonya helmer Craig Gillespie. It certainly looks like FTX will be next, even though the collapse just happened and it will presumably take time to sort the mess. Stay tuned.