Rival docuseries in works at Netflix about drug kingpin Owen Hanson
Jul 09, 2022
Washington [US], July 9 : Earlier this week, it was learnt that Mark Wahlberg and Unrealistic Ideas are in the early development of a documentary about USC soccer player turned drug lord Owen Hanson who was arrested by the FBI in 2015 and convicted in 2017 for running an empire, which spanned the US, Latin America and Australia.
As per Deadline, Netflix has also been working on a docuseries with the Feds who took Hanson down. Former Netflix Documentary Contractor John Turner (now head of Imax docs division) is behind it with Greg Whiteley. Their docuseries apparently focuses on the Phantom Secure phone which was involved in nabbing Hanson.
Hanson began selling recreational drugs and steroids to college teammates in the early 2000s and eventually built a violent empire. Hanson was sentenced to more than 21 years in federal prison and ordered to pay a felony forfeiture of USD 5 million, including USD 100,000 in gold coins, luxury vehicles, jewellery, vacation homes, a sailboat, and equity interests in various companies.
The lynchpin of Hanson's capture by the FBI was professional gambler R.J. Cipriani, aka Robin Hood 702. Hanson had given him USD 2.5 million to play with and returned it in the form of a casino check. But Cipriani lost it at blackjack. In return, Hanson threatened Cipriani with death and sent him photos of his deceased mother's gravestone, photos of his wife along with her personal information, and a video showing beheadings.
It's understood that Cipriani refused to be part of the documentaries that he believed would tell his story, as per Deadline.
Turner was a development consultant at Netflix Documentary Features, where he was also the creator of the police series 'Dirty Money.' Also, he was executive producer of the recent documentary 'Why did you kill me?'
Turner also produced the short film 'Walk Run Cha-Cha,' which appeared in the anthology series 'From Here to Home,' which Turner produced for Davis Guggenheim's Concordia Studio and The New York Times' OpDocs. After premiering at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, it was nominated for both an Oscar and a News & Documentary Emmy.
