EbonylIfe Studios and Will Packer have secured the rights to Bloomberg's article 'The Fall of the Billionaire Gucci Master' based on incarcerated Nigerian fraudster Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi.
Confirming the new partnership, Ebonylife boss, Mo Abudu revealed in an Instagram post that she pitched the story idea to Will Packer productions in 2020.
"When the Hushpuppi story made headlines last year, I pitched the story idea to @willpowerpacker and James Lopez. They bought the idea and as headlined in this press release, together we won the rights to the Bloomberg article by Evan Ratliff mentioned above. The rights were won after a highly contested derby by several producers and is now set up at Universal Pictures," Abudu wrote.
The untitled project is set to be an action thriller detailing the Evan Ratliff written article on how Hushpuppi was nabbed by the American government for laundering millions of dollars. It will be produced by James Lopez for Will Packer and Abudu for Ebonylife.
The thriller will reportedly be a hybrid of Steven Spielberg's 2002 pseudo biographical crime film 'Catch Me If You Can' and Bryan Singer's 1995 neo-noir mystery thriller film 'The Usual Suspects'.
Hushpuppi's arrest in the United Arab Emirates and subsequent extradition to the United States made major headlines in 2020. The embattled Instagram influencer recently pled guilty to money laundering and other cyber and business email compromise schemes leading to his victims losing over $24 million.