Inside the Journalism-to-Adaptation Pipeline

Joshuah Bearman (left), J.J. Abrams (center), and Joshua Davis (right) at the premiere of the docuseries Moon Shot. (Courtesy of Joshua Davis)

There was a moment in the mid-2010s when it felt like you could watch an article go viral and set a timer for the inevitable Hollywood adaptation announcement. The Great Streaming Wars were in full swing; checkbooks were open, and industry executives acted like media bounty hunters, breaking down doors in search of the next big story. Jessica Pressler’s Anna Delvey exposé was published by The Cut in May 2018. By June, Shonda Rhimes was developing it into a Netflix miniseries. That same summer, Jeff Maysh’s McDonald’s Monopoly scam saga hit The Daily Beast — and roughly 72 hours later, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Pearl Street Films had snapped up the rights for $1 million after a fierce bidding war. At the time, it was reportedly the highest price ever paid for an optioned article, signaling just how rabid Hollywood’s appetite was for fresh intellectual property.

There was just one problem: the film never got made. Likely a casualty of Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox, “McScam” became an eye-wateringly expensive failure to launch, a cautionary tale of how a juicy story ripe for adaptation can fail to make it to the finish line. Optioning has always been long, slow, and full of false starts. It’s still possible for a compelling story to make it all the way to production, but budgets have tightened and strategies have shifted. Hollywood is still dependent on fresh IP, but it’s more cautious as it navigates a contraction period; the number of films released each year by major studios continues to fall below pre-COVID levels, while box office revenue also lags. 

Through interviews with writers and industry insiders straddling the line between Hollywood and journalism, we’ve uncovered what it takes to succeed today. Spoiler alert: You don’t just need to write a compelling story and hope for the best, you need to think like a producer — and that means knowing exactly what the process entails.