From Jeffrey Epstein to Anna Sorokin: 6 real-life scandals Hollywood is making into movies and TV shows
Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie star in film about Roger Ailes’ downfall at Fox News, with sex trafficking, blood testing, a cult and a college admissions scandal among other topics
Netflix and Hulu duelled over a major scandal earlier this year.
The infamous Fyre Festival, founded by convicted fraudster Billy McFarland, presented an obvious story to dig into that viewers would eat up: what was touted as a luxury music festival scammed prospective festivalgoers out of thousands of dollars and left them stranded on a secluded island in the Bahamas. The streaming companies both released their own documentaries on the subject in January.
The Fyre Fest is just one recent example of a major scandal that Hollywood quickly got its hands on. There are many others.
Three projects are already in development about the financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested on suspicion of sex trafficking in July and took his own life on August 10 in a Manhattan correctional facility.
Other recent scandals that Hollywood has its eyes on are the Nxivm cult and the college admissions bribery scandal, in which over a dozen high-profile individuals were indicted this year.
We rounded up six scandals and the TV and movie projects in the works about them:
Jeffrey Epstein
Three projects are in the works about Epstein.
Lifetime, which aired Surviving R. Kelly, is planning a Surviving Jeffrey Epstein docuseries.
Producer and actress Patricia Heaton is developing a project based on The Miami Herald’s “Perversion of Justice” series of articles which depicted Epstein as a serial child abuser.
