Posted on 08/04/2018 12:05:00 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Talk about supersizing it.
The bidding war that erupted over a Daily Beast story published July 28 about a decadelong scam involving the McDonald's Monopoly contest has resulted in one of the most lucrative rights deals for a single article, sources with knowledge of the deal tell The Hollywood Reporter.
In the end, it was 20th Century Fox and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's Pearl Street Films' bid of $1 million — a huge sum for an 8,700-word web feature — that beat out other bids from Universal, Netflix and Warner Bros.
Affleck has committed to directing the project, with Damon set to star, presumably in the central role of antihero Jerome Jacobson. An ex-cop hired to oversee security on the sweepstakes, Jacobson started a side hustle selling high-value playing pieces — including many $1 million prizes — to a wide network of colorful and unsavory types.
But the beneficiary of the McScam movie deal earned his paycheck the honest way: by delving into one of the strangest, funniest and most gripping capers in American history. He is Jeff Maysh, an L.A.-based journalist and true-crime author.
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
Anti-American Affleck and Damon?
They’ll be lucky to get their million back...cause it’ll flop.
All the cops on TV are crooked, all the heroes are crooked, all the adventures are crooked. It is just debilitating to watch. America (and men) are so horrible in the movies. Why, we should all be communists, that's the ticket.
Every company that runs a contest knows exactly where the winning tickets are, it’s a close held secret that only a few (maybe five) know ;so when a scam artist tries to counterfeit a winning ticket the company will know exactly.
Oh and PS: I read a story about the same thing but it was a beer company and the winning item was on a six pack placed in a certain store in a certain town in a certain state.
Did you read the article? It was hard to follow at times with all of the different names of the players involved, but it was fascinating. But then I’m into true crime stories.
Took the words out of my mouth.
MAGA!!
Chumps’ chump change.
I just read the headline and ran from that - I’ve read similar stories on how people tried to scam ....
A respected man at the Ad agency had job to travel and place tickets on wrapper & Fry pods. He did a switch in the airplane facility and his escort didn’t know. He received special tamper proof bags delivered to him by mistake,
He started given connections the winners who had to go to various places in US. But there were slip ups.
He thought his Get out Jail card was knowledge no winners were to be seeded in Canada.
Interesting -thanks
The guy seemed on the up and up and he was the only person to control the winning peices. He got upset that McDonald’s wasn’t allowing any big winnings tickets to be distributed to Canada. After that he pretty much it figured it was fair game to do what he wanted. He would just meet folks and after a conversation, would ask if they needed money. He would give them a $1 million ticket for $40,000.
All of this happened in the 90’s and the trial started on 9/10/01. It was forgotten about very quickly as a result of the events of 9/11...
Regardless of their politics I liked Matt in the Bourne series.
The story of the McDonald’s Monopoly scandal is quite fascinating. The cheater was the guy McDonald’s hired as the chief of security for the contest itself and he managed to outwit an auditor who was assigned to tag allot with him. It’s all quite an involved scheme involving the guy giving away the real prizes and getting kickbacks. Incredibly, he approached complete strangers on multiple occasions and got them to agree to be part of the crime.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-an-ex-cop-rigged-mcdonalds-monopoly-game-and-stole-millions?via=twitter_page
The guy was a genius money launderer.
At one point, the ex-cop scammer took a loan out on his property......then had “someone else” pay it off.....as the way to get payment.
Made me wonder how often the Clintons used that scam.
He was a flat-out thief. That money wasn't his to give away. He was hired to provide security to ensure the game pieces were distributed as the owners (McDonald's) wanted.
Yeah I remember the Monopoly game. Not sure how well this will translate to a movie though.
If you have Hulu, I recommend The Last Ship.
Full of Heros doing Hero things.
They’re gonna make a movie about McDonalds game piece fraud? This should rank right up there with the review Al Capone’s financial books. Rivetting stuff!!!
Glad all the importand crap has been covered.
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