Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Are Making a McDonald’s Monopoly Crime Ring Movie

Last weekend, the Daily Beast relayed the tale of an organized crime ring that defrauded McDonald’s out of millions of dollars by rigging its annual Monopoly promotion. The story was so wild, plans to make it into a Hollywood blockbuster are already in motion, reports Deadline. The Daily Beast’s article begins in Rhode Island, so in accordance with United States law pertaining to films with any sort of New England connection, actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are on board.

Damon will star as Jerome Jacobson, a former police officer at the center of the crime ring, while Affleck will sit in the director’s chair. Fox won the bidding war for rights to the movie, per Deadline, beating out other such studios as Universal (which imagined Kevin Hart as lead actor), Warner Bros. (Steve Carell), and Netflix (Robert Downey Jr.). Fate could have taken this project in a number of wildly different directions.

Jacobson and his nefarious associates illicitly claimed almost every prize McDonald’s Monopoly had to offer over the course of 12 years, from 1989 until the Federal Bureau of Investigation busted the ongoing heist in 2001. In total, according to the Daily Beast, the bogus winnings were valued at $24 million. Jacobson’s job as a security guard for the printing company that produced pieces for the game gave him access to the extremely rare Monopoly properties: Boardwalk, Short Line Railroad, and the like. For a regular customer, the odds of winning the grand prize of $1 million were 1 in 250 million. A single family connected to Jacobson reportedly claimed three million-dollar wins and a Dodge Viper.

Details on a potential production schedule, release date, and how Damon will shoehorn a Boston accent into a character born in Youngstown, Ohio, are not yet available.

• How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions [DB]
• Fox, Ben Affleck & Matt Damon Win Hot Package On Multi-Million Dollar Theft Of McDonald’s Monopoly Game [Deadline]
• The McDonald’s Monopoly Game Actually Was a Scam [E]
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