Netflix developing movie on Panama Papers

American on-demand streaming website Netflix is developing a movie about the Panama Papers scandal with John Wells and Claire Rudnick Polstein as producers.

Netflix has acquired the rights to the book "The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money", written by German journalists Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, reports variety.com.

It's the second Panama Papers movie to be unveiled this month. Steven Soderbergh, Lawrence Grey's Grey Matter Productions and Anonymous Content are producing an untitled project based on Jake Bernstein's upcoming book "The Secrecy World".

Obermaier and Obermayer, who write for German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, based their reporting on access from an anonymous whistleblower to 11.5 million documents from the offices of Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The papers provided details on how the wealthy and powerful used the firm to take finances offshore to avoid tax liabilities.

The documents were leaked by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a global group of reporters and publications, which began revealing their findings in April.

Obermaier and Obermayer will work with producers Wells and Rudnick Polstein, and executive producer Zach Studin of John Wells Productions. Marina Walker and Gerard Ryle of the ICIJ -- which oversaw more than 400 journalists in 76 countries on the release of the Panama Papers -- are also collaborating on the film in an unspecified capacity.

"We are confident that between the expert investigative work of Obermaier and Obermayer, the only journalists in touch directly with John Doe, the ICIJ, and the master storytelling of John Wells Productions, we will be able to deliver a gripping tale that will deliver the same type of impact as the Panama Papers when they were first revealed on the world's front pages," Netflix Chief Operation Officer Ted Sarandos said.

No director or actors are attached to the project yet.

--IANS

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