To the surprise of no one who has followed one of the most incredible stories of the year, the Deep Web black market known as Silk Road is going to Hollywood.
It’s only been two weeks since the FBI shut down the the hugely successful online drug marketplace, but speculation about a silver screen version has been going on since the handcuffs closed around alleged mastermind Ross William Ulbricht’s wrists.
20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment have tapped author Dennis Lehane to put together a script for Silk Road based on an unreleased piece of longform journalism by Joshua Davis for Wired, reports Defamer.
Davis, a contributing editor at Wired, is one of the men behind Epic Magazine, an outlet dedicated to making longform articles into movies. At Epic, Davis works with Joshuah Bearman, who wrote the article that formed the basis for the Oscar-winning film Argo.
Lehane has written a handful of blockbusters including Shutter Island, Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Live by Night, an upcoming project directed by Ben Affleck.
“There was a stampede for movie rights to this story,” reports Deadline.com. Virtually every substantial article in the hours and days following the news was flooded with comments asking when it would reach Hollywood.
Many Silk Roaders are worried that the film will portray the website and its founder, Dread Pirate Roberts, in a negative or misleading light, but with so much worldwide attention and a story this good, nothing was ever going to stop Silk Road from reaching the silver screen.
Photo via Eric Frankel/Flickr