Hulk Hogan’s controversial 2010s legal battle against Gawker – which eventually shut down the blog site – is heading to the big screens.
Matt Damon and Ben Afflick’s production company Artists Equity has reportedly bought a Charles Randolph screenplay on the legal battle, titled “Killing Gawker.”
Variety is reporting that Gus Van Saint has been tapped as the movie’s director, but no news has come out about casting for the film just yet.
In 2013, Hogan filed a lawsuit against Gawker for publishing a sex tape which he said was recorded without his consent. Three years later, Hogan was awarded $115 million in compensatory damages and another $25 million for punitive damages, causing the gossip site to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Hogan eventually settled for $31 million with Gawker. The site was sold to Univision Communications in a bankruptcy auction, allowing other sites on their network to remain functioning. Gawker was acquired by Bustle Digital Group and re-opened in 2021, but closed less than two years later.
There were many big storylines coming out of the lawsuit, all of which have been covered extensively in books and documentaries. Most notably Hogan was under fire after court tapes revealed that he had used racial slurs in parts of the sex tape, causing WWE to briefly cease working with him. It was also highly discussed that billionaire Peter Thiel, the co-owner of Paypal, was financially backing Hogan’s case in what seemed to be an act of payback after the site outed him as gay in 2007.
We now know that all of the dramatic angles from Hogan’s high-profile case will get another news cycle when the film hits theatres, streaming services, or maybe both.
