Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence will tackle the big-screen version of one of the strangest media lawsuits ever: WWF legend Hulk Hogan‘s sex tape/revenge porn case against Gawker Media.
The now-defunct online media company Gawker, famed for pushing journalistic boundaries, got in a heap of trouble when in April 2012 it published a two-minute video clip showing Hogan having sex with Heather Clem, the wife of popular on-air personality Bubba the Love Sponge.
Intrigue
The movie will chronicle Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media over the unauthorized publication of the sex tape. Hogan sued for defamation, loss of privacy, and emotional pain. A jury ruled in Hogan’s favor in 2016, resulting in a $140 million judgment that led to Gawker’s dissolution.
The Hunger Games filmmaker is attached to direct an adaptation of Ryan Holiday’s Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue.
A Netflix documentary about the case was made in 2015. Hogan, Gawker founder Nick Denton and the lawsuit’s secret financier, Peter Thiel, will all be characters in the new movie.
“When I read Ryan’s extraordinary book I was totally taken with this story, such an exquisitely contemporary tale, and I immediately had a vision for it as a film,” said Lawrence. “It’s an important and meaningful story, and one I’m excited to tell.”
Lawrence most recently directed the sexed-up, vapid Jennifer Lawrence vehicle Red Sparrow and is currently developing the reboot of Battlestar Galactica for Universal.
