20th Century Fox has come out victorious in an intense bidding war for the feature film rights to Jeff Maysh’s Daily Beast article ‘How An Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game And Stole Millions’, with the studio tapping Matt Damon to star and Ben Affleck.
The article tells the story of Jerry Jacobson, head of security for a Los Angeles company responsible for generating the game pieces used in McDonald’s Monopoly promotion. Under the name ‘Uncle Jerry’, Jacobson sold game pieces to his co-conspirators, allowing them to steal over $24 million in prizes, in a scam that “involved mobsters, psychics, strip-club owners, drug traffickers and a family of Mormons who falsely claimed to have won more than $24 million in cash and prizes.”
According to Deadline, Fox fought off stiff competition from the likes of Universal, Warner Bros. and Netflix, with Kevin Hart, Steve Carell, Robert Downey Jr. and Todd Phillips all said to have been circling the rights.
Damon and Affleck will produce the movie through their Pearl Street banner, while the script is being penned by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (Deadpool).
