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Netflix and John Wells Productions are developing a film about this year’s Panama Papers scandal.
Netflix has acquired the exclusive rights to “Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the World’s Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money”, a book by Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, the journalists who broke the story and led the team that uncovered The Panama Papers.
In the feature film, Netflix and John Wells Productions will tell the definitive story behind The Panama Papers and the two journalists who, working through an anonymous source known as John Doe, cracked open an unprecedented torrent of lies, diversions and information that revealed how the wealthy hid billions of dollars offshore through a little known law firm in Panama. The work, released in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), set off an international firestorm, triggering the resignation of heads of state, judicial investigations in over a dozen countries and a global debate on just how easy it has become for the wealthy to avoid taxes, game the system and evade the law.
Netflix will work with producers Wells and Claire Rudnick Polstein and executive producer Zach Studin of John Wells Productions to bring to life the dramatic story in a feature film. Marina Walker, ICIJ deputy director, and Gerard Ryle, who leads the ICIJ’s headquarters staff in Washington D.C., and oversaw the more than 400 journalists in 76 countries on the Panama Papers, are also on-board to collaborate on the film.
