Seth Rogen and
Michael Keaton have joined the comedy
"King of the Jungle", a biopic focusing on tech magnate
John McAfee. The film will be directed by
"Crazy, Stupid, Love." and
"I Love You Phillip Morris" filmmakers
Glenn Ficarra and
John Requa from a script by
"The People vs. Larry Flynt" and
"American Crime Story" scribes
Scott Alexander &
Larry Karaszewski.
Based on the Wired magazine article
"John McAfee's Last Stand", the film will tell the wild true story of rogue tech magnate McAfee (Keaton), creator of the McAfee Antivirus software, who cashed-in his fortune, left civilization, and moved to the jungle in Belize where he set-up a Colonel Kurtz-like compound of guns, sex and madness. In the film, Wired magazine investigator Ari Furman (Rogen) accepts what he thinks is a run-of-the-mill assignment to interview McAfee, but once he arrives in Belize, he finds himself pulled into McAfee's escalating paranoia, unhinged reality, and murder.
McAfee, suspected of allegedly killing his neighbor Greg Faull (an accusation he has denied), subsequently fled the country for Guatemala and eventually the United States. McAfee later ran against Gary Johnson to be the Libertarian Party’s 2016 Presidential candidate.
The project was previously announced in 2017 with
Johnny Depp attached to star. The film will be produced by
Jeremy Steckler, Charlie Gogolak, Glenn Ficarra, John Reque, Marc Butan, Steve Richards and
Joshua Davis.
Rogen is currently in post-production on an untitled Lionsgate comedy in which he stars opposite
Charlize Theron, and he has recently voiced Pumbaa in Disney's
"The Lion King" live-action remake. Keaton will next be seen in
Tim Burton's
"Dumbo", also for Disney.
