EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-nominated producer David Permut and Jamie Cohen of Australia’s Clockwork Films have acquired the film and television rights to award-winning journalist and author David Kushner’s book. The Players Ball: The Secret History of the Secret Rise of the Internet.
The book tells the true story of the birth of the Internet and the subsequent battle between two men for control of the rights to the multi-million dollar domain name sex.com.
This epic, decade-long war took them from the boardrooms of Silicon Valley to a shootout in the brothels of Mexico—and to the edge of their consciousness. Along the way, an eclectic cast of porn stars and programmers, billionaires and brainwaves, jerks and gangsters are involved.
In one corner is lovelorn, visionary tech entrepreneur Gary Kremen, who founded the first online dating service, Match.com, in 1994 with a $2,500 loan in hopes of promoting love and connection via the Internet. Realizing the value of domain names, he quickly bought several, including sex.com, betting that the combination of love and sex would help propel the Internet into the mainstream.
On the other hand, his evil nemesis is Stephen Michael Cohen, a burly, balding, armed criminal, con artist and sex addict from Los Angeles. Disguised as a judge and lawyer, he left a trail of bad checks and defrauded investors after promising to build a fantasy island of sex in Las Vegas. One of his many downfalls was acquiring the sex.com domain under false pretenses, which he used to start making millions promoting pornography.
“This story is so much more than a daring ride through the wild west of the early days of the Internet, online dating and pornography. This speaks to the beginning of a $1 billion digital market. Virtual properties like NFTs and Bitcoin today have the same problems of corruption and fraud that started the sex.com battle. said Permuth
Jamie Cohen added, “This story is not just a nostalgic look at the birth of the Internet and online dating, it’s a crucial part of American history. For me, the most compelling part of the story is the obsessive struggle between the two to outwit each other and win at all costs. It’s a war that almost destroys them both. I look forward to working with Naomi Harvey, VP of Clockwork with David Kushner and Permut Presentations.
Permut is currently an EP in Taylor Sheridan’s new series Bass Reeves with David Oyelowo and Quiet directed by George C. Wolfe on Netflix. His next film is Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s The invitation for FilmNation, in addition to the upcoming one be hay man for Apple, written and directed by Oscar winner Siân Heder, and the sequel to his hit film Face/off at Paramount. Permut received a nomination for best film for it metal saw burr in 2017.
Alex Astrakhan, director of development at Permut Presentations, is co-producer of the project.
Founded in Australia in 2007, Clockwork Films quickly became one of the country’s fastest growing companies featured in BRW’s Fast 100 and has since grown into an award-winning global multimedia production company with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles and developing Auckland, London and Cape Town.
Kushner served as EP on the winning film Independent Spirit Zola, also based on the true story presented in his article in Rolling Stone. He has also written several other high-profile stories for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, among others.
Several other of his works have also been translated for film and television, including his way based on his article Dead end on the Silk Road. The Church of Dangerous Life edited by Charles Randolph for Christian Bale. Amma Assante Kushner Levittown for wiping. And one of his latest books Alligator Candy is currently a hugely popular podcast series.
THE PLAYERS BALL team is currently exploring the project with a number of prominent filmmakers and writers to develop the book as a series or feature film.
Permut Offers and Clockwork Films are both represented by John Tishbi of Pearlman & Tishbi, LLP.
Kushner is represented by Eric Robinson at The Gotham Group and Adam Vitible at Hirsch, Wallerstein.
Source: Deadline
Bernice Bonaparte is an author and entertainment journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a passion for pop culture and a talent for staying up-to-date on the latest entertainment news, Bernice has become a trusted source for information on the entertainment industry.
