Barack and Michelle Obama signed an exclusive deal to cash in on their notoriety with Netflix. The deal allows them to make a slate of movies and TV shows and documentaries.
In the least surprising move, one of the first movies they will make is an adaption of a blistering anti-Trump book.
Michael Lewis the guy who wrote ‘Moneyball’ and ‘The Big Short,’ wrote a book about the early days of the Trump administration.
The book is called The Fifth Risk and it alleges mass chaos inside Trump’s team during the transition of power and beyond.
The book paints government as the hero and savior, no wonder Obama’s interest, and portrays Trump’s attempts to dismantle the administrative state in a very bad light.
The book jacket reads: “The election happened,” remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. “And then there was radio silence.” Across all departments, similar stories were playing out: Trump appointees were few and far between; those that did show up were shockingly uninformed about the functions of their new workplace. Some even threw away the briefing books that had been prepared for them.
Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders. In Agriculture the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches is being slashed. The Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly. Over at Energy, where international nuclear risk is managed, it’s not clear there will be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do.
The full list of Obama’s movies include:
American Factory, a documentary that examines life in Ohio where a Chinese billionaire opened a factory in a former General Motors plant and hired 2,000 people. Higher Ground Productions described the film, produced by Participant Media and directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, as “early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.” The documentary was already shown at the Sundance Film Festival, and Higher Ground Productions said it would be its first release.
Bloom, a drama series set in post-World War II New York that will explore the “barriers faced by women and by people of color in an era marked by hurdles but also tremendous progress.” It will be produced by Callie Khouri, who wrote “Thelma & Louise.”
A film adaptation of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David W. Blight. Higher Ground did not announce a screenwriter or any producers.
An adaptation of a New York Times series, called Overlooked, about people whose deaths were previously not reported by the newspaper. The obituaries have been published in a recurring feature in the paper. Higher Ground Productions said it would be a scripted anthology series.
A series based on The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, a book by Michael Lewis.
Crip Camp, a documentary film about the origins of the disability rights movement.
Listen to Your Vegetables & Eat Your Parents, a half-hour series for preschoolers that will “take young children and their families around the globe on an adventure that tells us the story of our food.”
Want to see what the production company founded by the Obamas is working on? Here's the development slate of shows and films, all exclusive to Netflix, just announced 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/yhaeeFIuSK
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 30, 2019
