After years of retreat on the feature-film front, Gus Van Sant premiered “Dead Man’s Wire,” a true-crime thriller, at the Venice Film Festival in September. This marked Van Sant’s first film in over seven years.
Van Sant recently hinted (via THR) that his next film would tackle the infamous Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced crypto mogul, co-founder and CEO of FTX, who once owned one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. His collapse began in late 2022 amid revelations of fraud and misuse of customer funds. In March 2024, he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
I have more information about this project. It’s set to shoot in March 2026. The title is “Explain it Like I’m Five,” and it’ll portray Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall.
Bankman-Fried and his, err, eccentric “girlfriend,” Caroline Ellison defrauded hundreds, while also engaging in a lifestyle that often included video games, junk-food binging, and plenty of threesomes. This is the kind of story that was always destined for the big screen.
It seems Gus Van Sant, who has never stuck to a single style or genre throughout his career, is now leaning into directing true-crime stories. Always one to take risks with his projects, it’s simply great to see him back behind the camera.
Earlier this year, Van Sant directed six episodes of “Feud: Capote vs The Swans,” which critics responded to favorably. It marked a small but notable return to form for a filmmaker that’s been noticeably absent from the spotlight — until now.
The late ’80s and early 2000s, when he concocted his “death trilogy,” were Van Sant’s peak years, when he was arguably one of the most vital voices in American indie cinema. “Drugstore Cowboy,” “My Own Private Idaho,” and “Elephant” — which won the Palme d’Or in 2003 — are undeniable highlights.