The key to successful films about tech giants Elon Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried? Go dark and transgress

News is circulating online that A24 wants Darren Aronofsky to adapt Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Elon Musk into a feature film. That’s because Apple is working toward the same goal with fallen cryptocurrency king Samuel Bankman-Fried, based on the subject-friendly book “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis.

These can be difficult tasks, especially when the issues are still in the third act, but especially in Musk’s case, Aronofsky and A24 face the sobering prospect of negotiating a Faustian deal with Musk that grants access, but possibly also the most polarizing can have effect Is the figure in the world this side of Donald Trump someone who is warm and fuzzy?

As for the Bankman-Friedman book, what’s fascinating is that this nerd convicted of high-dollar fraud wrote a book by Lewis that was widely criticized for being too kind to the subject.

These films can be difficult when the subject is in the middle of the third act. Musk’s prowess can be measured at Tesla and SpaceX (Tom Cruise will raise that profile even further by traveling into space with director Doug Liman to make the first feature film in space), but his past track record leaves him with Twitter (now X). still leaves a lot to be desired. is desirable, like so many other parts of this extremely complicated man.

The best move these films can make is to disagree with the themes. While Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg once negotiated a collaboration with The Social Network, filmmakers David Fincher, Scott Rubin and Aaron Sorkin wisely decided not to go that route, as it could have compromised their creative vision.

I remember writing about a Phil Spector movie that Tom Cruise wanted to make with Cameron Crowe. The latter told me that although Tom mastered the Wall of Sound music producer, there was no satisfying third act. Well, there was definitely a third act when gun-loving Spector was convicted of shooting a woman in his mansion. But the film was approved – the filmmakers needed song rights, and there seemed to be no downside at that point – and there was no way Spector and his reps were going to allow this story to be told.

These films work best when they are stories told in the darkest way possible, like the limited series about the opioid-making Sackler family. Zuckerberg’s image was boosted by the social network because the film and Jesse Eisenberg’s performance were so good. However, giving up any creative freedom could result in one of the creators of these projects abandoning an expensive book rights deal because the resulting sanitized film will be met with disdain.