LOS ANGELES, May 16 — A trio of high-profile actors have been linked with Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat, based on 2016’s Panama Papers financial documents scandal.
Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman appear to be in line to lead The Laundromat.
Soderbergh, director of the Ocean’s 8 trilogy, is in negotiations to reunite with the three actors for his upcoming feature.
It’s based on an insider account of the April 2016 Panama Papers scandal, in which an international consortium of investigative journalists gained access to an enormous trove of leaked documents from offshore financial consultancy Mossack Fonseca.
The papers showed how some of the firm’s rich clients were able to avoid taxes, state sanctions, criminal pursuit and popular derision through the use of shell companies.
Jake Bernstein, one of the journalists involved in bringing the Mossack Fonseca situation to light, then authored Secrecy World based on his research; Scott Z. Burns, writer on The Bourne Ultimatum, Contagion and The Informant, then adapted it into the script for The Laundromat.
Streep has been nominated for an Academy Award a record-breaking 21 times, winning on three occasions for Kramer vs Kramer, Sophie’s Choice and The Iron Lady, with her most recent nomination coming for her performance as the USA’s first female newspaper publisher in The Post.
Upcoming projects include Mary Poppins Returns, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and the second season of Big Little Lies, due in 2018.
Spanish actor Banderas has collected three Golden Globe nominations over the course of his career, for Evita, The Mask of Zorro and TV movie And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself. He plays Pablo Picasso in the third season of Genius, which began at the end of April.
Oldman won Best Lead Actor at the 2018 Academy Awards for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. He is also well known for his work as detective Jim Gordon in three Batman movies.
Netflix has expressed interested in tying up a deal for the project, according to Deadline’s sources and, if successful, the streaming service would have not one but two movies based on the Panama Papers scandal; the other is based on the book by German investigative journalists Obermaier and Obermayer, with John Wells of Shameless, The West Wing and Southland producing. — AFP-Relaxnews
