Rise Films, who developed Netflix’s Oscar-winning documentary feature “Icarus” and the Emmy-winning “The Invisible War,” are working on the first TV scripted event series about the famed News Of The World phone-hacking scandal.
Luke Neal, who penned the David Tennant-led true story British serial killer drama “Des,” is writing the series while “The Salisbury Poisonings” director Saul Dibb is attached to helm.
Titled “Thank You & Goodbye,” the series aims to offer an insider perspective on the “industrial-scale illegal information gathering” at the Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid newspaper the News Of The World.
The paper was shut down by Murdoch in July 2011 following the revelation the outlet had hacked the voicemail of Milly Dowler, a murdered British schoolgirl.
What was seemingly a simple phone-hacking scandal soon blew up into a hundred arrests and a major public inquiry that made international news for weeks and saw Murdoch himself questioned by British lawmakers.
The production has reportedly secured exclusive access to some of the convicted perpetrators who intercepted the voicemails of Hollywood stars, politicians, and murder victims.
Neal says the aim is to explore, without judgement, the “human nature of the people who contributed to this gross abuse of power and trying to understand how and why they did this.”
Source: Deadline