AGBO, David Gordon Green Plot Film On Cambridge Analytica Mastermind Christopher Wylie; Script By Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely

EXCLUSIVE: In a moment in which Facebook is finalizing a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission to pay $5 billion primarily for the 2018 Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, Deadline hears that AGBO is mounting a movie about the young pink-haired data consultant, Christopher Wylie, who purportedly was at the center of the whole thing.

David Gordon Green is in talks to direct an untitled film that has a finished script by Avengers: Endgame screenwriters Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely. I’m told Green is eyeing it for after he returns to helm the second leg of his massive hit franchise reboot Halloween with Jamie Lee Curtis for Blumhouse and Universal. AGBO will finance a film that is on a fast track for a 2020 start date.

AGBO will put together the whole package and will then secure a distributor for a film that will be a lot less flattering for Mark Zuckerberg than the last big movie, The Social Network. Here, Facebook and others became the delivery system for manipulative messaging that had serious global consequences.

Wylie is reputed to be the catalyst who illegally corralled personal data of 87 million people from their Facebook profiles, in order to institute a messaging system that push the buttons of a vast audience with disinformation campaigns that influenced the last presidential election and the Brexit vote. Wylie met Steve Bannon when he was editor of Breitbart and before he became Donald Trump’s chief strategist. Wylie was 24 when he came up with the idea for the data analytics form Cambridge Analytica, an enterprise that was reportedly funded by Robert Mercer, a U.S. hedge-fund billionaire and Republican donor. Wylie is a complex figure and his evolution from facilitator to whistleblower is a part of the film’s narrative, sources said. He has told his story in official testimony and to journalistic outlets like The Guardian. That article, written by Carole Cadwalladr, is part of the rights package here, I’m told. Facebook has steadfastly denied any participation in the data breach.

The picture is being produced by Joe & Anthony Russo, and Mike Larocca. Even though they and Markus & McFeely have spent close to the last decade on billion dollar Captain America and Avengers films, their goal at AGBO is to take on edgy material. This film certainly fits that bill. The subject matter is sensitive and none of the principals were commenting.

Green is repped by CAA; Markus & McFeely are repped by UTA and attorney David Colden. Wylie’s repped by attorney Jared Bloch of Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson.