EXCLUSIVE: Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) and Isla Fisher (Now You See Me: Now You Don’t) have joined Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson in Doug Liman-directed thriller Bitcoin.
Ahead of the Cannes market, Patrick Wachsberger’s 193 is launching sales on the film, which has previously been called Killing Satoshi in online reports, but is officially titled Bitcoin.
Today we can also reveal character details and synopsis.
The film sees Liman reconnect with Oscar winner Affleck who stars as computer scientist Craig Wright. The duo previously worked on 2024 Apple pic The Instigators. Also starring are Pete Davidson as blockchain investor Calvin Ayre, Gal Gadot as Charlotte “Lotte” Miller, and Isla Fisher. The film was written by WGA Award winner Nick Schenk (Gran Torino) and produced by Ryan Kavanaugh and Lawrence Grey. Production began at the end of February.
The synopsis reads: “Bitcoin is the true story of one man’s quest to prove that he is, in fact, the creator of Bitcoin — a claim that puts his life in peril and sets off a global firestorm and a wild, high-stakes race between the who’s who of tech billionaires and world leaders, with the fate of the world’s entire financial system hanging in the balance, all leading to the question, “Why do the world’s most powerful people want to erase one man, and why would they spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do it?”
Australian computer scientist and businessman Wright has publicly claimed to be the main part of the team that created the billion dollar business bitcoin, and the identity behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The claims have been regarded as false by many in the cryptocurrency community and in 2024 the British High Court ruled that Wright is not Nakamoto and must stop saying he is so.
Wachsberger, the 193 boss and former Lionsgate film co-head, told us today: “This is an exciting and gripping story, set in the mysterious and high-stakes real world of crypto. It is brought to life by the brilliant Doug Liman, with whom I am thrilled to reunite after our success with Mr. & Mrs. Smith, alongside an incredible team of talent and producers. We can’t wait to share some of the exciting and inventive footage of Bitcoin with our international partners in Cannes.”
The project generated headlines a couple of months ago for a casting notice that mentioned prominent use of AI in the film. The notice, reported by Variety, said the indie film may use AI to adjust some performances and that actors would perform in a “markerless performative capture stage and not in any locations, using new Al technologies.”
The film is the highest-profile producing return for Ryan Kavanaugh, the once high-flying Relativity Media boss who helped finance films including The Social Network, The Fighter and The Fast and the Furious before the studio imploded in 2015. Kavanaugh has become a cryptocurrency proponent in recent years.
Puck first reported on 193 joining the project.
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