Posted on: March 4, 2024, 02:11h.
Last updated on: March 4, 2024, 02:11h.
A biopic is in development about the most influential, and now controversial, figure in gaming history.
“The Rise & Fall of Steve Wynn” will be adapted and co-produced by Christina Binkley from her own 2018 New York Times bestseller, “Winner Takes All: How Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Won — and Lost — the High Stakes Gamble to Own Las Vegas.”
From Bingo to Billions
The biopic will cover Wynn’s meteoric rise from scrappy bingo parlor operator to billionaire casino mogul, and then out of the gaming industry altogether, after a 2018 Wall Street Journal article accused him of engaging in a “decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct” towards female staff.
Producing the biopic will be a company called CoverStory, which is helmed by producers Scott Jay Kaplan (“Queenmaker,” “Red Penguins”) and Emmet McDermott (“White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch”).
“We are immensely lucky to work with Christina on this larger-than-life story,” McDermott said in a press release about the deal.
According to the release, “The Rise & Fall of Steve Wynn” will be “set primarily in the 1990s” and illustrate “how Wynn’s unparalleled drive for power ultimately cost him everything, creating a vacuum of power filled by his ex-wife Elaine.”
No distribution deal has been announced.
Wynn has denied all sexual assault accusations against him and has never been convicted of a crime. However, the controversy caused him to resign from his position as chairman and CEO of the company that bears his name. He also sold his stake in Wynn Resorts in a bid to protect its gambling licenses in Nevada and Massachusetts.
