Panama Papers Film Set to Star Hollywood A List

News

Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep is set to star in Steven Soderbergh’s thriller based on the Panama Papers leak, the Hollywood Reportersaid on Monday.

May 15, 2018

Titled The Laundromat, the film was written by Scott Z. Burns and will be adapted from Jake Bernstein’s book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite.

Actors Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas have reportedly been in talks to join the cast as well.

It’s unclear who Streep or the others will play. Sources told the Hollywood Reporter that Streep will play the “emotional throughline.”

Distribution of the movie may go to Netflix, making it the second Panama Papers-focused film coming from the streaming giant, according to the Guardian. The director of August Osage County in which Streep starred, John Wells, is set to produce that film.

Most recently, Streep received a 21st Oscar nomination for The Post. That film explored the struggle the Washington Post went through with publishing the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s.

The Panama Papers was one of the biggest leaks in journalistic history and revealed the secretive offshore companies used to hide wealth, evade taxes, and commit fraud by the world's dictators, business tycoons and criminals.

The Panama Papers are documents obtained from a Panama-based offshore services provider called Mossack Fonseca. The documents were received by the German newspaper SĂĽddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and with the OCCRP.