Lena Dunham to write Sam Bankman-Fried movie for Apple

Lena Dunham has been tapped to write a new movie on the rise and fall of the FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

According to Variety, the Girls creator will adapt Michael Lewis’s 2023 bestseller Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon for Apple and A24. Bankman-Fried, once seen as the poster boy for crypto, was convicted of fraud last year and sentenced to 25 years. At one point, he was the 41st richest American, according to Forbes.

Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in history and was described during sentencing as “a calculating math genius who sought power and influence while knowingly committing wrongdoing”.

Related: ‘Old-fashioned embezzlement’: where did all of FTX’s money go?

Dunham, best known for her acclaimed HBO comedy drama series, has also directed the period coming-of-age tale Catherine Called Birdy and the sex comedy Sharp Stick, both released in 2023. The Guardian’s Adrian Horton called the former “thoroughly enjoyable” and the latter “dissatisfying and confusing”.

She also directed the first episode of the HBO drama Industry and produced a remake of the British comedy series Camping.

She is coming off the back of the Netflix series Too Much, a romantic comedy she wrote and directed which stars Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe. Dunham has described it as a story “that makes us root for love, brings joy but also has the jagged edges of life”. It is set to be released in 2025.

The rights to Lewis’s book, which the Guardian’s Emma Brockes called “fascinating”, were sold to Apple for $5m. His previous books Moneyball, The Blind Side and The Big Short have also been adapted into movies.

The project also joins an Amazon series on Bankman-Fried that was announced in 2022.