FX just announced that it has picked up a new limited series from the Slumdog Millionaire team — writer Simon Beaufoy and director Danny Boyle — that will focus on the crazy circumstances surrounding the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, heir to the Getty oil fortune. FX says the first installment of this new series, titled Trust, will be “equal parts family history, dynastic saga and satirical examination of the corrosive power of money.”
But perhaps you’re not familiar with the 1973 kidnapping and saw phrases in that paragraph like “crazy circumstances” and “corrosive power of money” and said, “Hmm, tell me more.” Well, here you go, courtesy of FX.
The first installment takes place in 1973, when the young Getty is kidnapped in Rome and his mafia captors are banking on a multi-million dollar ransom. After all, what rich family wouldn’t pay for the return of a loved one? Trust charts the young man’s nightmare ordeal at the hands of kidnappers who cannot understand why nobody seems to want their captive back. The Italian police think it’s a prank and decline to investigate. Paul’s father is lost in a heroin daze in London and refuses to answer the phone. Paul’s grandfather – possibly the richest man in the world – is marooned in a Tudor mansion in the English countryside surrounded by five mistresses and a pet lion. He’s busy. Only Paul’s mother is left to negotiate with increasingly desperate kidnappers. Problem is, she’s broke.
I dunno about you, but they had me at “marooned in a Tudor mansion in the English countryside surrounded by five mistresses and a pet lion.” I just hope Burt Reynolds is healthy enough to play the role he was put on this Earth to play.
