IP Picks🔎: A Feminist Robin Hood

+ A romantasy treasure hunt and a Manson-esque true-crime thriller

UNEXPECTED HERO Kevin Costner and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. (Warner Bros.)

Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along.

The 2025 Berlin International Film Festival kicked off yesterday, which means there’s another edition of Books at Berlinale. For those unfamiliar with this series, it’s the annual showcase for books by international authors that supposedly have high potential for screen adaptation.

I’ve written about this in the past, which is why I say “supposedly.” Every year I get excited to check out the list . . . and every year I’m underwhelmed. The picks — 10 titles culled from about 120 nominees — never strike me as very commercial. They tend to lean more literary. On top of that, the titles aren’t very accessible for English speakers. Frankly, the whole thing is kinda . . . meh.

Still, there are a few selections I do like: The Sea Cemetery by Aslak Nore is a Norwegian-set drama/thriller that turns the hunt for a shipwreck containing a shocking family secret to a Succession-like business saga. Dog by Angelo R. Lacuesta is a feminist, Filipino body-horror story inspired by an indigenous folk tale. And Daily Soap, from the Swiss writer Nora Osagiobare, is a satirical take on race and reality TV centered on a family of small-time scammers. I can easily see that one working in an American setting. You can check out the whole list here.

•The first rule of Fight Club is . . . This darkly funny story about Meta employees simultaneously torrenting pirated books and emailing each other about how it was wrong perfectly encapsulates what’s wrong with the way companies are building LLM AI models. They’re essentially stealing IP to reap greater rewards for themselves. At one point, Meta debated paying for IP to use in building its LLM, but then the company decided that would undermine its argument that stealing this stuff was fair use.

Making companies pay — and pay a fair price — for the underlying material to build AI programs is something that should unite writers and publishers/studios. In my opinion, it’s also a necessary reminder that a lot of these AI pioneers are parasitic thieves who will steal the shirt off your back, cut it up and then try to sell it back to you for double what you paid. About the only visionary thing I see in AI so far is the brazenness of the theft.

•And finally . . . Lauren Francis-Sharma’s Casualties of Truth was an Optionist pick a few months back and it just got a bang-up review in the NYT. I wanted to flag it because after Donald Trump cut aid to South Africa (based on lies about the country’s history), this thriller about the legacy of Apartheid seemed more timely than ever. Also, it would make a helluva movie.

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On to this week’s picks, which include a wild true-crime yarn and a super-fun treasure-hunt adventure. The full lineup:

• An adventure tale (with magical-realist elements) about the search for sunken treasure

• A fresh action-adventure spin on Robin Hood

• A timely historical fiction story about the trans community

• A true-life procedural following a whistleblower who exposes corruption at a pharmaceutical company

• A true-crime tale that reads like a modern-day Helter Skelter