Steven Soderbergh is making a film about the Panama Papers leaked in May.
The 53-year-old director, who helmed ‘Magic Mike’, ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and ‘Erin Brockovich’ is set to tell the story about how 11.5 million documents belonging to the world’s fourth biggest law firm, Mossack Fonseca, were passed to a German newspaper and revealed how some wealthy and powerful US citizens were able to commit fraud and tax evasion.
Soderbergh will produce from a script penned by his ‘Side Effects’ collaborator Scott Z. Burn and Lawrence Grey of Grey Matter Productions and Michael Sugar of Anonymous Content will co-produce.
The project is based on the upcoming book entitled ‘The Secrecy World’ by Jake Bernstein, who belonged to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The organisation helped to crack the story after a whistle blower – whose identity has never been revealed – passed the documents to Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
In a statement, ‘John Doe’ said his "life is in danger" and told the publication he leaked the documents "simply because I understood enough about their contents to realise the scale of the injustices they described".
The movie draws similarities to the Oscar-winning film ‘Spotlight’ about a group of journalists who revealed the cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the U.S, which was also produced by Sugar.
Meanwhile, Soderbergh – who is married to writer Jules Asner – is directing Daniel Craig in ‘Logan Lucky’ in his first movie outside of the James Bond franchise, and which stars Channing Tatum to Hilary Swank and Katherine Heigl.
Steven Soderbergh to make film about the Panama Papers
