Ben Affleck, Matt Damon Team for Movie About a McDonald’s Monopoly Scheme

By Dave McNary

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Fox is developing “How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions” as a movie with Ben Affleck attached to direct and Matt Damon starring.

The studio won the movie rights to Jeff Maysh’s true-crime story, recently published in the Daily Beast, which detailed how ex-cop Jerome Paul Jacobson rigged the McDonald’s Monopoly game in 2001, allegedly stealing millions of dollars.

Damon and Affleck will produce through their Pearl Street company. The “Deadpool” writing team of Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese has been hired to write the script.

The auction was handled by IPG’s Joel Gotler, who repped Maysh. David Klawans is exec producing.

The story starts by describing how Michael Hoover claimed he had won the $1 million grand prize after collecting Monopoly pieces and a camera crew was dispatched to his home in Rhode Island.

“The camera crew listened patiently to his rambling story, silently recognizing the inconsequential details found in stories told by liars,” the story reads. “They suspected that Hoover was not a lucky winner, but part of a major criminal conspiracy to defraud the fast-food chain of millions of dollars. The two men behind the camera were not from McDonald’s. They were undercover agents from the FBI. This was a McSting.”

Affleck is starring in the Netflix political thriller “The Last Thing He Wanted” with Dee Rees directing. Damon is portraying car designer Carroll Shelby in Fox’s “Ford vs. Ferrari” movie.

WME reps Affleck and Damon. The news was first reported by Deadline.