IP Picks🔎: 5 Crypto Crimes Ready for TV & Film
➕ The shadowy world of day traders, kidnappers & tech bros... oh my!
Welcome to The Optionist. We’ve got a stacked week, including our first-ever roundup of crime tales from the white-knuckle world of cryptocurrency. As a relatively new financial sector, crypto still feels a bit like the Wild West. And now, on the heels of this recent Optionist pick, we’re taking a deeper look at some of the most colorful outlaws and lawmen in this new and rapidly changing digital frontier.
But first, let's kick things off with an Optionist exclusive. Earlier this year, TV critic-turned-TV writer Emily St. James (Yellowjackets) published her debut novel, Woodworking and it has just been optioned by Crooked Media for development in either film or TV.
Woodworking centers on Erica, a thirtysomething South Dakota high school teacher who comes out as a trans woman. Obviously, this isn’t an easy decision. So she winds up turning to the only other trans person in town, a student named Abigail, for help. Against the charged backdrop of the 2016 election, where both Trump and a local conservative running for Congress are on the ballot, Abigail assists Erica with her transition while Erica helps Abigail navigate something nearly as terrifying: high school. Think of this as a heartwarming mix of Kevin Kline’s 1997 film In & Out and Prime Video’s Transparent.
The book received excellent reviews when it dropped in March. Publishers Weekly called it a "must read" and Kirkus said it was “funny and heartrending." While the Washington Post hailed it as “a compelling case for one of our culture’s most maligned groups.”
Before optioning the screen rights, Crooked published the novel under its Crooked Media Reads imprint at Zando, which has already acquired the author’s next novel. That follow-up is being described as "a Little Women-inspired spinoff animated by St. James’s signature queer twist and heartfelt messiness."
Crooked Media launched in 2017 with the hit podcast Pod Save America, which was created and hosted by former Obama staffers (and company founders) Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor. It has since added more podcasts, expanded into book publishing and is now developing projects for the screen.
Aside from placing a smart bet on a very adaptable book, it’s encouraging to see a reputable media company that isn’t afraid to tackle a story about one of the most-maligned and oppressed groups in the country — and one that's been grotesquely demonized by the Trump administration. More than ever, trans characters and trans stories are crucial to challenging that bigotry.
A quick, unsolicited plug for Todd Purdum's excellent new book Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television, which I just finished. It's an insightful and poignant read that should be on the TBR list of anyone who works in the business.
Aside from playing the role of Lucille Ball’s husband on and off the screen, Arnaz was a television pioneer. As Purdum spells out, he basically invented the sitcom as we know it with I Love Lucy. He introduced the idea of filming in front of a live audience, giving shows a second life via reruns and syndication, and creating multi-stage sets. Of course, there's also Arnaz’s notoriously volatile marriage to Lucy. But even the lesser-known parts of his life are fascinating (and often quite sad): His riches-to-rags life in Cuba following the country’s 1933 Revolution, the early days of his musical career and his marital infidelities. Purdum brings the charming, ambitious and self-destructive Arnaz to vibrant, vivid life.
It should also be said that Desi Arnaz is also an unexpectedly timely read. Purdum has said that part of his motivation for the book was his desire to capture a moment when diversity and inclusion changed Hollywood as well as the importance of immigrants to American culture. That said, Desi, who always considered himself a refugee rather than an immigrant and was a staunch old-time Republican conservative, makes for a complicated symbol. Still, he was a prominent advocate for the Hispanic community and would have probably had a lot to say about Trump’s recent attacks on immigrants.
🔒 This Week: A Crypto Crime Roundup
On to this week’s picks! The beyond-bizarre NYC crypto kidnapping/torture story that we highlighted two weeks ago, one among a rash of crypto crimes sweeping the globe, inspired me to poke around for other potential crypto and cybercrime tales whose rights are still available. I’ve come up with five good ones to start. I say “to start” because I’m still poking around. So stay tuned, I may flag a few more in the coming weeks. But for now we’ve got…
💰A drama centered on one of the first-mover crypto companies that could be the basis for an elevated soapy show in the vein of Industry
🖥️ A drama about a Ukrainian single-mom hacker who cooperates with the U.S. government after being involved in a huge SEC breach that the agency tried to cover up
₿ A thriller about a group of crypto bros in their teens and early 20s who stole $240M in Bitcoin and the white-hat hackers that brought them down
👤 A journalism procedural about the hunt for Satoshi Nakamoto, the shadowy mastermind who created Bitcoin
🖼️ A satire/comedy about the wild rollercoaster ride of the NFT bubble of the early 2020s
