Playground delves into financial scandal

US- and UK-based drama producer Playground has optioned the rights to a recently published book by the Wall Street Journal’s David Enrich.

Scott Huff

Playground will develop financial conspiracy exposé The Spider Network, which was published in the UK and US last month by HarperCollins Publishers.

The project will be shepherded by Scott Huff, senior VP of development and production, and Elyse Dolbec, director of development and production, in Playground’s US office.

The non-fiction book tells the story of Tom Hayes, a talented but troubled British trader subsequently convicted and imprisoned for his involvement in Libor fixing, one of the largest financial scams in history.

Enrich is currently the Wall Street Journal’s financial enterprise editor, managing a team of investigative reporters in New York.

“The Spider Network is a globe-trotting financial exposé in the vein of Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short, but with an enigmatic central character in banker Tom Hayes,” said Huff.

Playground has produced more than 50 hours of TV drama including BBC duo Wolf Hall and The Dresser, which airs on Starz in the US, since being founded in 2012 by former HBO films boss Colin Callender.

Among the other books it has optioned in the past 18 months are Panti: Woman in the Making, the memoir of Irish drag queen and gay rights activist Rory O’Neill; The Widow by Fiona Barton; Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories by Thomas Grant; and Patrick Kingsley’s book The New Odyssey – The Story of Europe’s Refugee Crisis.