Warner Bros. is in the process of negotiating the acquisition of Dangerous Odds – an adaptation of the book Dangerous Odds: My Secret Life Inside An Illegal Billion Dollar Sports Betting Operation, by Marisa Lankester – which is set to be scripted by Andrea Berloff (World Trade Centre). The story is notable for being a female-led tale, with plenty of opportunity for drama, intrigue and diverse casting.
Dangerous Odds is Lankester’s memoir, focusing on the time she spent helping develop the world’s largest sports betting operation, before going on to establish the world’s first off-shore gambling organization in the Dominican Republic. The business ties to organized crime meant Lankester was repeatedly arrested, becoming embroiled in a corrupt and violent world where she was brutalized and imprisoned before finding happiness in a lifestyle change and relocation.
Margot Robbie is attached to star as Lankester, which immediately makes this one of the most sought-after projects in the market place. Robbie is riding a wave of success after The Wolf Of Wall Street, having recently completed Focus, starring Will Smith, being cast as Harley Quinn in the high profile Suicide Squad, and having Z For Zachariah currently screening at Sundance to high critical praise. The deal for Dangerous Odds is also being made at Sundance and, though Robbie is attached, there is no word yet on the hiring of a director.
There has been a small flurry of similarly plotted movies over the past few years – none of which have particularly set the box office alight. Brad Furman’s Runner Runner was a disappointment in 2013, as was Rupert Wyatt’s The Gambler in 2014. Ridley Scott’s The Counselor fared only slightly better in 2013 – albeit with more emphasis on a drug trafficking angle. The critical and financial success of the many female-led projects released in recent times, however (The Hunger Games franchise, Gravity, Still Alice and Cake in film; Orange Is The New Black on TV) all demonstrate a clear audience appetite for female protagonists in well-written stories. With Andrea Berloff writing the script, and Margot Robbie leading the cast, hopefully that’s what we’ll have in Dangerous Odds.
