IP Picks 🔎: The Greatest Jewelry Heist You've Never Heard Of
➕ the mobster and the Mormon (exclusive sneak peek), and the chess cheater
Welcome to The Optionist! As always, thanks for reading. I got a note from an agent letting me know that one of my favorite Optionist finds — a James Bond spoof series where the main character may be a spy, a crazy person or both — was picked up by U.K.-based Avalon Entertainment for development as a series. That’s exactly the kind of IP The Optionist is designed to highlight: A hidden gem which didn't catch Hollywood’s eye at first, but has the concept, characters and world-building for a successful adaptation.
To be fair, there’s so many books/podcasts/news stories/games coming out each month, it’s hard for any one person to track that and do anything. That’s where a virtual development partner like The Optionist is so valuable. We’re out there hunting down the overlooked treasures and curating a list of the best IP picks. If you look, your next project could be here, too.
One piece of good news for book lovers (we’re all book lovers, right?): The Washington Post is bringing back its book section as a standalone section in the Sunday paper, more than a decade after it folded. The combination of the great crash of ‘08 and the rocky digital transition for newspapers killed a lot of book coverage in the late aughts. But that coverage has been making a comeback of late. The LA Times is another paper that has expanded its coverage and is doing great work. The Atlantic and even Buzzfeed have also ramped up book coverage of late. Cutting book coverage always struck me as short-sighted. Publishers might not be the biggest advertisers, but book lovers — dedicated readers — are exactly the audience newspapers, who often can’t find enough readers, should be chasing. And it’s why book adaptations make sense in Hollywood: Not only are book fans a ready audience but they’re eager proselytizers of the stuff they love and there’s still no better way to attract an audience than good word of mouth.
Now onto this week’s picks. We’re chock-full of true crime this week with three great journalism pieces, including an exclusive advance sneak peak at a forthcoming Los Angeles magazine story about Mormon fundamentalists who hooked up with the mob to fleece the government of millions — an alliance that predictably ended badly. We’ve also got:
An armored-car jewelry robbery that might be one of the biggest ever of its kind
A crazy cheating scandal rocking the chess world
A Doctor Zhivago-esque epic Russian love story
A Buffy-like coming-of-age story
JOURNALISM
True Crime
For fans of The Italian Job, Money Heist
Potential logline: Who pulled off the $100 million truck-stop jewelry heist?
“Mystery shrouds colossal Brink’s heist at I-5 truck stop: Who stole millions in gems, gold?” by Richard Winston (Los Angeles Times, July 22) This robbery over the summer hasn't gotten enough nearly enough attention, given its size. It could turn out to be one of the largest thefts in history, as much as $100 million worth of goods, by some estimates. Here's what's known: A little after 2 a.m. on July 11, thieves broke into a Brinks semi-trailer parked at the Five freeway's Flying J truck stop in Lebec, Calif. while one driver ate dinner and the other was asleep in the cab. They stole millions of dollars worth of jewelry, diamonds and watches en route from a trade show in San Mateo to one in Pasadena. Here's what we don't know: A correct timeline, the value of theft (Brinks says $10 million, while the jewelers say they under-declared to save shipping and the true value is $100 million) and most importantly, who did it. It could be L.A.’s Armenian mob (but it doesn't fit the MO). An inside job might be the most logical answer — it would explain how the thieves knew where the truck and its armed drivers were. The mystery remains unsolved and the investigation is ongoing. Now's the time to get involved for something unscripted (or maybe a pod). It's early for something scripted, though that will come into clearer focus as the investigation advances. The Times has owned this story since the beginning with a series of follow-up articles revealing important details, so getting in bed with them early would be the way to go. REPS: Los Angeles Times.
Drama/Sports/True Crime
For fans of Queen’s Gambit
Potential logline: A chess prodigy cheated his way to the top until he was outed by his World Champion rival.
“Chess Investigation Finds That U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times” by Andrew Beaton and Joshua Robinson (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 4, 2022) Even without the wildest accusation — that teen phenom Hans Niemann (also pictured at the top) used vibrating anal beads to secretly get sent moves from an accomplice — this is a riveting story about how 19-year-old Niemann likely cheated to become the fastest-rising player in the history of modern chess. Niemann has confessed to cheating on virtual games by consulting a chess computer for the best moves and was suspended by chess.com for that, but the most recent allegations gained attention when reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen withdrew from an early September tournament in St. Louis after losing to the young player. He didn't outright accuse Niemann then, or even a few weeks later when they met for an online rematch and Carlsen resigned after one move, but both actions were interpreted by chess fans as protests to Niemann’s behavior.
Now comes this chess.com report (download link below) that says Niemann was cheating in online games as far back as when he was 12 — including some matches with prize money at stake— and that his meteoric rise was statistically improbable. Plus, Niemann's behavior — he didn't look like he was trying hard when playing Carlsen — and his description of his strategy to the press after the match seemed off. The world of high-stakes chess is fascinating; it’s loaded with tension and drama, and full of great oddball characters that would make this story ripe for a doc, but also a drama centered on the rivalry between the two players. Online chess boomed during the pandemic and Queen's Gambit demonstrated that the sport was a great theatrical setting, even for people who don't play. REPS: You can reach out to chess.com here–its report and expertise might be the best bet. WSJ is repped by WME.
TRUE CRIME
For fans of Big Love, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad
Potential logline: A fundamentalist Mormon and an Armenian-American mob boss team up to embezzle millions from a government biofuel program, become unlikely pals until the FBI nails them.
EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK: “The Mobster and the Mormon” by Michele McPhee (Los Angeles Magazine, forthcoming Nov.) Think The Sopranos meets Big Love. I have your attention now, right? This is a wild, and wildly entertaining, story about how a scheming Mormon engineer hooked up with an Armenian-American mob boss to swindle hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. government subsidies by faking biofuel production. The cast of characters is fab. The engineer, Jacob Kingston, is a member of a sect called The Order that still practices polygamy (Jacob has 127 siblings, three wives and at least 20 of his own children), is involved in its own criminal operations and is so racist that the Southern Poverty Law Center said it could “teach the Ku Klux Klan a thing or two.”
Then there's flashy L.A. mob boss, Lev Dermen, who befriended all sorts of powerful people including the president of Turkey, and even had an FBI agent and an L.A. detective on his payroll. The other players in this story are equally colorful: The FBI agent with a soft spot for Gucci and Rolexes; the detective who ran a Fast and Furious-style car theft ring on the side; Dermen's lawyer, Edgar Sargsyan, who tried to steal his boss' Gulfstream by repainting the tail number; and Hannah Tucker, one of Jacob's three wives, who was also having an affair with Dermen. Whew.
At the center of it all are Kingston and Dermen and their bromance. Kingston is a cross between Bill Paxton's Bill Hendrickson in Big Love and Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman. Having grown up in a cabin without running water, he was seduced by Dermen's money and lifestyle. He was also trying to hide from The Order that he was skimming millions of dollars that were supposed to go to them from the scheme. Dermen is the vicious mob boss (my image is Tony Soprano by way of Michael Chiklis in The Shield), who takes in Kingston like a son, but is ultimately betrayed by him and others on his payroll. (There really is no honor among thieves.) A drama that revolves around these two anti-heroes is the show I'd wanna watch. Both Dermen and Kingston are in jail for their roles in the scheme. The article isn't out yet but if you click the link below you can download an advance copy courtesy of Los Angeles. REPS: Verve
BOOKS I LIKE (current)
Historical fiction/Thriller
For fans of Doctor Zhivago and Possession
Potential logline: In 1991, a woman returns to Russia to learn the truth of her father and sister’s murder, and uncovers a connection between her family and the doomed 1917 love affair between a Russian princess and a revolutionary.
The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch (Berkeley, March 2023) I love a sweeping historical epic, especially one like this that has a mystery at its center and features two timelines — one set in the 1917 Russian Revolution and one that takes place during the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union — that eventually converge. In the 1991 timeline we have Rosie, a Russian expat studying at Oxford whose mother has just died and left her a collection of porcelain dolls and an enigmatic notebook of handwritten Russian fairy tales. Adrift, Rosie accepts an offer to return to Russia to help a scholar finish some research. But her real motive is to find out the truth about the murder of her father and sister, crimes that were never solved and precipitated Rosie and her mother leaving the country. The second timeline, which takes place in the early 1900s, involves the star-crossed love affair between Tonya, a Russian aristocrat in an unhappy marriage and a handsome idealistic Bolshevik who helps bring down the monarchy in the Revolution of 1917. Eventually the timelines meet, and the relationship between the two stories becomes clear to the readers. The mystery here — what's the relationship between Rosie and Tonya — and how the past continues to haunt the present is really compelling but I love the historical sweep of the 1917 forward timeline. It gives off Doctor Zhivago vibes, mixed with the chauffeur Tom Branson falls for Lady Sybill arc from Downton Abbey. (Indeed the author cites Pasternak as an inspiration.) This is a debut novel but Loesch has a Master's in Slavic Studies from Cambridge and brings historical Russia alive with lots of granular details (not just in 1917 but across the 20th century of Russian history) that make the story really immersive. Plus, the fairy tales dreamed up by the author, which are used to open chapters could be incorporated into an adaptation in a clever and fun way. There's enough sweep here that this would work better as a prestige limited series on a streamer than as theatrical film. You know who would be great in the role of one of the two lead women? Mila Kunis (who already speaks Russian). I lean to her as Rosie in the 1990s, but we've never seen her in a period piece and she'd bring a lot to a headstrong aristocrat. REPS: Valerie Hoskins
Paranormal Fantasy/YA
For fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Riverdale
Potential logline: A teen girl tries to redeem her family’s name by joining an ancient order of monsters hunters, but the cute boy helping her train has secrets of his own regarding the order and the monsters.
The Luminaries by Susan Dennard (Tor Teen, Nov.) Winnie Wednesday lives in the mysterious town of Hemlock Falls — you can't find it on a map — which borders a dark forest (is there any other kind?) that houses a menagerie of monsters who rise at night to threaten humanity. She wants nothing more than to join the Luminary, the ancient order that keeps the monsters at bay, but ever since her father was exposed as a traitor, the family has been shunned. Soon she'll be 16 and able to take the deadly Luminary test to prove herself and redeem her family's name. Problem is, the only person that will train her is ex-BFF Jay Friday (each of the Luminary clans is named after a day of the week), who is the best monster hunter of his generation. But Jay is also a bad boy who stinks of cigarettes and trouble and more importantly, has secrets of his own that connect to the monsters. This is a great coming-of-age story in a creepy setting with echoes of Buffy, Riverdale and Sabrina in the strong female protagonist and the bad boy love interest (who is the 2020s version of Jamie Marsters who can make Friday this generation’s Spike?) Also of note: The Luminaries started as a story that Dennard started spooling out on Twitter in 2019, allowing her followers to vote on plot twists in the choose-your-own-adventure vein, and which attracted over 2.5 million engagements during its run in . REPS: New Leaf