Wired’s story on Gizmondo, the gadget company fronted by Swedish con artist Bo Stefan Eriksson, has been optioned to be made into a film.
I just want to know, is Eriksson getting paid for his life rights? Because I’d hate to think he’s making a dime after the shit he pulled.
The original article starts out with the famous crash which brought attention to Eriksson, eventually ending his ring of lies:
THE BUMP IN THE ROAD that ended Bo Stefan Eriksson’s fantastic ride is practically invisible. From 10 feet away, all you can see is the ragged edge of a tar-seamed crack in an otherwise smooth sheet of pavement. Only the location is impressive – a sweet stretch of straightaway on California’s Pacific Coast Highway near El Pescador state beach, just past the eucalyptus-shaded mansions of the Malibu hills. On that patch of broken asphalt, there’s barely enough lip to stub a toe. Of course, when you hit it at close to 200 miles per hour, as police say Eriksson did in the predawn light last February 21, while behind the wheel of a 660-horsepower Ferrari Enzo, consequences magnify.
The Enzo has less than 6 inches of ground clearance, and at that speed, it took only a slight scrape under the front bumper to launch the vehicle. The airborne Ferrari landed in a skid that in a blink became a sidelong drift. Tires shredding, the car bounced over the shoulder onto a grassy slope wet with dew. All Eriksson could do was hold on as the slithering, swiveling Enzo again achieved liftoff, then slammed broadside into a wooden power pole.
Gizmondo’s story, one of massive fraud, mob ties and wrecked Ferraris, would make a fine film, but being optioned is far from a guarantee that the movie will ever get made. I hope it does, if only so that some good can come of the whole debacle. And so that more people can confuse Gizmodo with Gizmondo. I love that!* [Hollywood Reporter via Robert Capps, editor of the story who looks like a supertrooper]
*Not really.
