Mark Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Ideas Project About Drug Kingpin Owen Hanson In Works As Amazon Sports Docuseries – The Dish

EXCLUSIVE: The Unrealistic Ideas documentary about the FBI’s takedown of USC football player-turned-drug kingpin Owen Hanson we first told you about is currently filming as a docuseries for Amazon Sports.

Jody McVeigh-Schultz is directing and Adam Ridley is producing for Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson and Archie Gips’ Unrealistic Ideas, we’ve been told.

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Hanson began dealing recreational drugs and steroids to teammates in college during the early 2000s, ultimately building a violent empire that spanned U.S., Central and South America and Australia. Arrested in September 2015 and sentenced in late 2017 to more than 21 years in federal prison, Hanson was ordered to pay a $5M criminal forfeiture, which included $100K in gold coins, luxury vehicles, jewelry, vacation homes, a sailboat and interests in several businesses. The FBI teamed with the New South Wales Police Force in Australia to nab Hanson and uncovered an illegal sports-gambling, money-laundering and drug-trafficking enterprise of thousands of kilograms of illegal narcotics that led to Hanson. More than 21 of his associates also were arrested.

The lynchpin in Hanson’s arrest was Philly high-stakes gambler-turned-FBI source R.J. Cipriani aka Robin Hood 702, who was tasked by the drug lord to gamble $2.5 million in a laundering scheme. Robin Hood 702 lost the money in blackjack, which provoked Hanson to make death threats, including sending Cipriani photos of his deceased mother’s defaced headstone and a video showing beheadings.

Cipriani was approached by Unrealistic Ideas to be part of the Amazon docuseries, however, he rebuffed. He currently has in development the scripted series about his involvement in the Hanson arrest, Jackpot, at Sony Pictures Television with Nicholas Stoller and his Stoller Global Solutions partner Conor Welch, as well as Jamie Canniffe, executive producing with Cipriani.

“As great a docuseries that this will be, unfortunately I can’t participate without an executive producer credit and fee, and I’m already partnered with my dream collaborator Sony Pictures Television and Nic Stoller and company to propel this story as a scripted series instead of a docuseries.”

Among Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Ideas’ documentary fare are the HBO docuseries, McMillion$, which received five Emmy noms, the IDA Awards-nominated Run This City and Discovery special The Lost Lincoln.

Amazon Sports nor Unrealistic Ideas returned Deadline’s request for comment.

Cipriani is repped by UTA.

McVeigh-Schultz is repped by UTA.

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