Apple and art house film company A24 are in early development on a film about the trial of crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried with a script by Lena Dunham, Variety report. The project will be based on a book by Michael Lewis Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon that many critics have found Bankman-Fried overly dismissive.
This book describes the tragic rise and equally straightforward fall of Bankman-Fried and the FTX crypto exchange and Alameda hedge fund. However, it paints the founder of FTX as benevolent and glosses over the fact that he defrauded billions of dollars from clients and used it for things like celebrity endorsements, political donations and real estate purchases.
FTX was worth billions at its peak, but the exchange eventually collapsed and Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Most FTX customers will get their original money back, plus interest, but that’s based on a $17,000 bitcoin price — and the current price is about five times that.
Basing the film on Lewis’s fawning hagiography is not a promising start. I hope Dunham or other writers will use better books (like The Numbers Are Going Up by Zeke Faux) showing the dark, fraudulent side of crypto promoters like Bankman-Fried and the entire industry in general.
Apple Original Films and A24 have announced other collaborations recently, including a Spike Lee and Denzel Washington film Up and Down. Other FTX scripted projects are also in the works, including an Amazon Prime limited series from the Russo brothers based on FTX’s fall of 2022.
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