We learn this week that Apple and A24 are moving forward with a film adaptation of writer Michael Lewis's book about Sam Bankman-Fried, and Lena Dunham has been tapped to write the script.
"When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby," reads the book description for Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, which was published last year. "CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?... Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, Going Infinite is Michael Lewis at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own―until it all came undone."
As Variety reported Tuesday, the movie is in its early development stages, and Apple Studios and A24 are co-developing and co-producing. It's unclear if that means they'll be seeking a theatrical release when it's finished, or if it will go straight to Apple TV+.
Michael Lewis, the famed author of Moneyball, was notably one of the few people allowed in to meet with Bankman-Fried in late 2022 while he sat out his bail-release, pre-trial, at his parents' house in Palo Alto.
The Bay Area-born Bankman-Fried, now 32, was sentenced in March to 25 years in federal prison. He was convicted a year ago on seven counts of fraud in connection with his running of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX. He was also ordered to forfeit $11 billion in order to pay restitution to victims.
Bankman-Fried, through his investment firm Alameda Research, was an early investor in SF-based AI startup Anthropic, which was founded by some former employees of OpenAI.
Two years ago, in November 2022, FTX, Alameda Research, and more than 130 associated legal entities declared bankruptcy in a notorious blow-up. There were reports that, at one point, FTX held $16 billion in customer assets, some which were transferred without customers' knowledge to Alameda Research.
In late September of this year, the New York Times reported that Bankman-Fried was sharing a cell at the notorious MDC (Metropolitan Dentention Center) with none other than Sean Combs.
The judge in Bankman-Fried's case had ordered him to serve out his sentence, due to his autism, at a medium-security facility close to the Bay Area and his parents. Bankman-Fried, however, requested to remain at MDC pending his appeal, which experts say could take years.
It's not clear how well Bankman-Fried has been doing, nutrition-wise, after complaining last year that he had nothing to eat at the jail, as a vegan, besides peanut butter.
Previously: Disgraced FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years
Top image: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (L) arrives for trial at Manhattan Federal Court on March 30, 2023 in New York City. Federal prosecutors added a foreign bribery charge to the list of crimes that Bankman-Fried is already facing. The indictment accuses the FTX founder of directing $40 million in bribes to Chinese government officials to unfreeze assets related to his cryptocurrency business. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
