There's nothing Hollywood likes better than making a drama out of a crisis. Oh, they might have the decency to wait a few years before doing so, but you can be sure they'll get there in the end. Now it's the turn of the collapse of Enron as Leonardo DiCaprio and Warners make a deal to bring us Conspiracy of Fools, a fictional account of the fall of the US energy giant.
The story's already been documentaryfied in Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, but this will be a drama seen from the point of view of a newcomer to the firm, who slowly peels away the layers of corruption to uncover the truth. He'll be played by DiCaprio, naturally, but it's still a change from the real events, where there was no single person who brought the truth to light, but rather a gradual collapse of the company's carefully maintained front.
The book, Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, is a non-fiction account of the collapse by New York Times Kurt Eichenwald. Sheldon Turner, the screenwriter responsible for, er, The Longest Yard remake and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning prequel (hey, everyone has to start somewhere) will be turning the book into a script. He's apparently planning on turning it from "a staid look at a corporation" into "a character study of how people react under adversity". Well, fingers crossed.
In the meantime, anyone wishing to learn more about the fall of Enron, which left thousands of employees not only out of work but also stripped of their pensions, should watch Alex Gibney's excellent 2005 documentary on the subject. With no director or other cast attached to this one yet, it will be a bit of a wait for this one to reach the screen.