Who says crime doesn't pay? According to Hollywood site The Ankler, Apple paid author Michael Lewis $5 million for the rights to his book Going Infinite about super fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried—an unprecedented amount for an unpublished work and more than the $2 million studios paid for the first four books of Harry Potter.
Apple's record-breaking check shows Hollywood's ongoing interest in grifter tales—think of Hulu's The Dropout, about Elizabeth Holmes, and Netflix's Inventing Anna, about fake heiress Anna Delvey, among others. This reflects the public's fascination with celebrity criminals and also indicates there is a lot of money to be made for publishers and studios in telling their stories.
