Fox Searchlight has honed its high beams on Arrested Development star Jason Bateman, who they’ve tapped to star and direct in their latest acquisition. The studio recently landed the rights to a story which appeared in Wired Magazine – Meet The Man Who Sold His Fate To Investors At $1 A Share – and are now taking it into development. The article title is quite the mouthful and ventures brazenly into spoiler territory, hence the name was changed to IPO Man.
The news arrives today courtesy of Deadline, who reveal that Bateman will play a man who put himself on the market. No, not the dating market – the stock market. Understandably, this kind of maneouvre would certainly lead to a conflict of interest. Would you rather make a ton of cash but have your every move dictated by faceless shareholders? Or be poor and still possess free will? It’s a ripe premise that’ll likely be a brilliant vehicle for Bateman’s third directorial effort.
Bateman and Jim Garavente are set to produce the pic under their Aggregate banner along with article scribe, Joshua Davis. Scripting the pic are Transparent writers Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster.
We’ve little else to go on with regards to casting, or a tentative release date, but stay tuned for more coverage on IPO Man. For further information on the bonkers specifics surrounding the true story, check out the summary below.
Merrill got into an IPO niche that usually allows investors to pony up money for a cut of someone’s future earnings, for instance. Merrill put himself on the block at $1 per share for 100,000 shares, and sold 928 of them. He started as a curiosity, with friends, family members and his girlfriend buying in. He made it interesting in that even though he still owned the majority of himself, he made that non-voting stock, meaning his investors could decide how he would conduct himself professionally, like when he got a thumbs up on his decision to invest $79.63 in a Rwandan chicken farmer. The controls veered into his personal life and he lost his girlfriend, who felt like the loser in a takeover battle. Same majority shareholders then exerted input in his future attempts at a romantic merger (he was even set up with a guy at one point). He was still allowing his investors to call the shot when the article ended.
