Gus Van Sant to Direct Sam Bankman-Fried Story in Next Movie

Gus Van Sant is back. After years of radio silence on the feature film front, he is set to return with “Dead Man’s Wire,” a true crime thriller set to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

This marks Van Sant’s first film in over seven years. The late ‘80s and early 2000s, when he concocted his “death trilogy,” were his 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.

In a new interview with THR, there’s an interesting tidbit about what Van Sant is planning next after “Dead Man’s Wire,” and it sounds like he’ll be tackling one of the more infamous personalities of the present decade: Sam Bankman-Fried

With Sam Bankman-Fried, I just thought this is an amazing sort of car crash in the crypto world. And then someone sent me a script about it.

Bankman-Fried, a disgraced crypto mogul, was co-founder and CEO of FTX, once 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.

While defrauding his customers, Bankman-Fried and his, err, eccentric girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, engaged 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.

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 noticably absent from the spotlight, until now.

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.