Remember The Mcdonalds Monopoly Article That Launched A Hollywood Bidding War? Turns Out It Was Planted At The Daily Animate Beingness Yesteryear A Moving-Picture Exhibit Producer Who'd Commissioned It To Goose His Project

That's from  Kyle Buchanan, an editor at Vulture.
Here's the story:

Behind Hollywood’s A-List Bidding War for a McDonald’s Monopoly Article
By Chris Lee

On a Sabbatum inward like shooting fish in a barrel July, the Daily Beast posted a story titled “McScam: How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game together with Stole Millions” — a picaresque, stranger-than-fiction conspiracy tale involving drug traffickers, mobsters, psychics, strip-club operators, together with fifty-fifty a Mormon identify unit of measurement who falsely claimed to a greater extent than than $24 1000000 inward cash together with prizes over a decade of criminal collusion. As the Sun began to laid upward inward Los Angeles, where the article’s British-born author Jeff Maysh lives, dozens of motion painting offers came rolling in. And past times Sunday, the floor was the acme Twitter trending topic inward the world. “I didn’t know in that location were thence many producers inward Los Angeles,” Maysh tells Vulture. “Anyone who’d e'er sentiment most becoming a producer emailed me. I was getting literally thousands of emails.”

Within days, an all-out bidding nation of war erupted betwixt several major studios together with a deep bench of Hollywood’s A-list leading men. Warner Bros. attempted to purchase “McScam” for a cinema to star Steve Carell (with Whiskey Tango Foxtrot co-directors John Requa together with Glenn Ficarra attached to direct). Netflix bid at the behest of Robert Downey Jr. together with Hangover filmmaker Todd Phillips. Universal attempted to snap it upward equally a star vehicle for Kevin Hart. As Vulture tin solely report, Martin Scorsese came to the bidding tabular array like shooting fish in a barrel inward the game amongst the expressed involvement of Leonardo DiCaprio for the Pb (ex-cop Jerome Jacobson). Will Ferrell together with Mark Wahlberg separately pursued the project. And Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment made a play for acquisition rights, according to sources amongst cognition of the negotiations.

“It literally was motion painting fantasy league for this thing,” says David Klawans, who volition co-produce the project. “In these times, it’s harder than e'er to teach a bidding war. And you lot don’t convey this sort of talent attached.”

But inward the terminate — only most 72 hours subsequently the story’s publication, to last precise — only 1 grouping would emerge victorious: 20th Century Fox together with Matt Damon together with Ben Affleck’s production fellowship Pearl Street Films, which bid an eye-watering $1 1000000 for the 8,700-word online long read (most articles ascendance pick fees of less than $1,000). That’s the highest toll e'er paid for an optioned article inward Hollywood history, according to agents who worked on the deal. The conception is for Affleck to straight together with Damon to star (presumably equally Jacobson) amongst hot-shot Deadpool writers Paul Wernick together with Rhett Reese treatment script duties.

Which would all last a happy Hollywood ending for whatever ink-stained wretch trying to view out long-form narrative nonfiction these days. Except this wasn’t only goodness luck or some sort of fluke that “McScam” had thence thoroughly connected amongst Hollywood: Klawans together with Maysh had been developing the article amongst the specific aim of turning it into a cinema since 2016.

Klawans (Nacho Libre, Amazon Prime’s The Legend of Master Legend) is the independent motion painting together with TV producer known for his meticulous research: reading through countless niche journals, RSS feeds, constabulary blogs, library microfiche together with clippings from tidings outlets from roughly the globe inward pursuit of ripped-from-the-headlines motion painting fodder. Seizing upon the oddball together with the obscure — oft long-forgotten location tidings most people amongst hidden lives doing weird, wonderful, oft shocking things — he enlists a minor cadre of professional person journalists to re-research the subjects, thence write long-form articles that teach published inward reputable magazines, newspapers, together with websites. The sentiment is that articles are meliorate than pitch meetings — that evolution executives volition last to a greater extent than probable to opened upward their checkbooks if the “planted” floor is arranged into a linear narrative amongst a three-act structure. Klawans buys the floor subjects’ life rights together with volition oft circulate an unpublished article to Hollywood production companies earlier publication to gin upward interest.

The inaugural instance of this M.O.: 2012’s Argo. In the like shooting fish in a barrel ’90s, the producer had read the then-recently declassified testimony of CIA exfiltration practiced Tony Mendez inward a CIA journal, detailing how he helped American diplomats escape the 1979 Islamic Republic of Iran hostage crisis past times posing them equally a grouping of Canadian filmmakers. Hiring journalist Joshuah Berman to pitch together with “plant” the slice inward Wired, Klawans thence sold the projection to George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures amongst Ben Affleck starring together with directing. Argo went on to gross $232 1000000 together with win the best painting Oscar inward 2013.

Maysh, a sometime American-based “stringer” (read: freelance reporter) for British tabloids, got into cahoots amongst Klawans inward 2013 when the Chicago-born, Belgium-raised producer reached out to compliment him on a story. And over the years, the 2 convey collaborated on a issue of articles that are at 1 time inward diverse stages of cinema development: “MORE