Twenty-eight-year old playwright Lucy Prebble's dramatic adaptation of the Enron saga has been a small-theater hit in London since July, and will begin a run on the West End next month.After that, a team of New York theater producers are looking to bring the musical to Broadway. And Columbia has picked up the movie rights.
Securities fraud cases are no stranger to the silver screen, perhaps the first of which was the 1932 hit The Match King, loosely based on the life of Ivar Kreuger. But the truth is that there really aren't any classic movies based on real-life fraud cases.
'Enron' could be one because, although it's since been eclipsed by Worldcom, there really isn't another case like it that possesses the same elements of human tragedy. Ken Lay is King Lear. As Bethany McClean, the journalist who first raised warnings about Enron's accounting noted, the Enron story isn't really about numbers, markets, or regulation. It's about people, and that's what makes it ideal fodder for a dramatic film.
There had been rumors that Kevin Spacey might be playing Jeff Skilling in the movie, but those have since been show down. But here's my casting pick: Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Ken Lay. Hoffman was masterful in the wildly underrated Owning Mahowny, based on the true story of a gambling addict bank employee who resorts to embezzlement to fuel his compulsion. He has just the right air of aloofness that will make him perfect as the CEO of a company he has absolute faith in but knows nothing about.
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