US film production company to shoot film on Ghana’s World Cup debacle

• Posted on October 9, 2014October 9, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

A US film production company Bugeater Films has hired screenwriter Darryl Wharton-Rigby to start working on the movie that is expected to be a hit on the screens

Hollywood filmmakers are at the conceptualisation stages of a movie that will put the spotlight on Ghana and how a whopping amount of $3 million in cash was airlifted to Brazil to pay the Black Stars at the World Cup.

The players of the west African country boycotted training prior to their last group game against a Cristiano Ronaldo-led Portugal due to a row over appearance fees.

It took President John Mahama to intervene after which the huge cash was flown in to the South American country to settle the incensed players a day before the crucial game.

A United States film production company – Bugeater Films – has hired screenwriter Darryl Wharton-Rigby to start scripting.

“Football and the players needing the money is kind of the backdrop to the story,” Wharton-Rigby told theBBC. “But it’s really about the journey of the guy who actually is entrusted to deliver the money and what happens if he doesn’t get it there in time.”

“I actually want the guy who’s the hero of the story to be from Ghana. I think there should be a hero who is African telling the story,” Wharton-Rigby, a former staff writer for celebrated US TV series Homicide: Life on the Street, revealed.

Wharton-Rigby continued: “It’s very much truth stranger than fiction. I saw footage of the police cars taking the money on the highway and you can just see that scene playing out in your mind with someone like Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson as the guy having to save the day. You can see all kinds of mayhem happening on the highway.

“It’s 50-50 as to whether it will get made, we’re still at the early stages so we’re going to take it one step at a time. Hopefully we can write a great script and get someone who is attached to it. It’s a fascinating story and I think audiences internationally would really take to it.”

“I can see the poster now; lots of soccer balls, a stadium and a guy on the run.”

By Kent Mensah