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The tech world and Hollywood have rarely interacted over the years, producing just a handful of hit-or-miss titles such as the spectacular The Social Network and the instantly forgettable Jobs. However, just because certain stories have gone boom and others have gone bust doesn't mean that there aren't still characters or events left in the tech industry that deserve dissection. The Internet and computer technology have given us a wide range of tales to be told over the past few decades, including the creation stories of tech behemoths like Google, and character studies like Silk Road's Dread Pirate Roberts.
Indeed, there are plenty of stories still waiting to be written for the screen. It's just a matter of the filmmakers selecting the right ones. With how sprawling the Internet has become, it can be difficult to narrow down anything related to its wide-reaching parts. So, to point aspiring directors toward the proper path, here are 10 Tech Stories That Would Make Amazing Movies. Let's hope that we can watch them on the silver screen sooner rather than later.
Busted
In the mid-2000s, online gambling was a billion dollar industry in the United States with reports estimating that companies like PokerStars and Sportingbet had combined to make $2.4B in revenues off of inexperienced or professional online poker players. The industry was also responsible for World Series of Poker champions like Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer, rags-to-riches players who grew up fast on the online circuit before taking their game to IRL tournaments. Online poker was both legitimate and shady, producing real, honest poker players, while also being despised by the older heads who had been raised in smoky, Vegas betting rooms.
And they weren't the only ones fed up with young, out-of-nowhere stars either. Eventually, the U.S. government got involved, charging Full Tilt Poker and two other poker companies with money laundering charges in 2012; the case eventually resulted in a forfeiture settlement of $731M. Combining the glitz and glamour of Vegas, the addictive nature of online gaming, and the overseeing power of the government, Busted would be a complex, three-pronged tale perfect for a wide range of audiences.
The Silk Road
In his 2001 film, Blow, Johnny Depp played the role of George Jung, a real-life cocaine smuggler who got rich off the drug trade in the '70s and early 80's. Blow was a gripping, adventurous crime-film filled with sex, violence, heartbreak, and a flawed anti-hero who simply got in too deep. You have to imagine that Blow would serve as a fitting template for the story of Dread Pirate Roberts, the founder of Silk Road, a black market website for a variety of illicit and illegal substances.
Off the Internet, DPR was Ross William Ulbricht, a bright Texas native who majored in physics and engineering while attending the UT-Dallas and Penn State for undergrad and grad school. However, after leaving PSU in 2010, Ulbricht's life took a strange turn, as he quickly became the mastermind behind one of the Internet's most dangerous sites. In 2013, Ulbricht was taken down by the feds under charges of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and the attempted murder of six different people. If a story like that won't get people to the box office, then nothing will.
The YouGeneration
Spawned by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, YouTube has made an entire generation of human beings media fluent in ways that would have been unimaginable even just a few decades ago. Back in the '80s, it was hard enough to find a decent camcorder to record your family vacation. Now, with the help of YouTube, anyone can earn their 15 minutes of fame with the help of their iPhone video camera or a professional set-up. Essentially, The YouGeneration is a film about films, providing a commentary on how filmmaking has become a new language in our digital age.
Press Play
When we look at the state of the music industry today, Napster is the forebear for all of the shifting and cultural change that has been taking place for the past couple decades. Appropriately, The Social Network recognized the company's influence on tech culture by including Napster's founder Sean Parker in the film, played by Justin Timberlake. Parker's tale, however, is worth more than just a supporting role in Mark Zuckerberg's rise to power. Napster's controversial role in music piracy and file sharing is well-deserving of its own feature-length film. As Spotify, Beats Music, Rdio, and others make waves in the music industry, it's time to remember the O.G. of the .mp3 game.
Citizen Surveillance
With the NSA scandal, the question isn't whether the movie will get made, it's just a matter of when it will get made. What director could resist a story like this? There is Orwellian intrigue, espionage, a complicated hero, and global implications. Essentially, it's a spy movie brought to real life with Edward Snowden as our very own Jason Bourne. The NSA has been a constant prescence in the news ever since their data-collection practices were revealed in the summer of 2013. The controversial government agency is ripe for Hollywood.
Dot-Bomb
Throughout the late '90s, as the Internet was beginning to blow up, everyone was making money off the Web. Companies were springing up over night, bringing fresh ideas with them that either went boom or bust. However, as the money got bigger, the business practices got shadier, as predatory companies discovered that they could inflate their value simply by making their product sound tech-related. It was The Wolf of Wall Street with techies instead of Leonardo DiCaprio & Co., and much like Jordan Belfort, they couldn't make the good times last.
By 2001, Internet companies accounted for about 8 percent of the U.S. stock market, but by then, investors were becoming wise to the illegitimacy or unreliabilty of the dot-com model, and began pulling their money out in droves. The most memorable failure of the era was AOL and Time Warner's merger, a move for which both companies were immediately criticized. However, we should also remember that it wasn't all bad. Despite their own crash, Amazon managed to survive the bursting bubble, eventually surpassing their earlier successes after a momentous recovery in the 2000s. Does anyone else smell a sequel?
Gates
The legend of Bill Gates has been well-circulated around popular culture ever since his rise to the top of the computer industry throughout the '80s and '90s. Gates is the quintessential tech prodigy, a nerdy drop-out who eschewed Harvard in favor of branching out on his own. However, we've never been able to see this full saga played out on the silver screen (aside from the made-for-TV film Pirates of Silicon Valley), and since Microsoft's heyday in the '90s, Gates has been a quieter force for the company, instead choosing to deal with his charity foundation.
But it's time for a trip down memory lane. In Gates, the filmmakers would explore the titular character's success story, as well as his pitfalls with anti-trust regulations and falling the shadow of Steve Jobs throughout the aughts. For the love of god, let's just hope they cast someone other Ashton Kutcher.
Dead Space
Remember when Facebook was just a small, basically unknown social network for college students, and MySpace ruled the online social scene for teenagers everywhere? What happened to MySpace's reign as a social community? They had Top 8 friends lists, fun ways to customize your profile page, and of course, Tom, everyone's first friend.
In 2005, the site was acquired by News Corporation for $580M, and briefly surpassed Google in 2006 as the most-visited website around. However, since then, its worth and size have decreased dramatically, and the site is now primarily focused on its music community. Essentially, the story of MySpace is the inverse of 2010's The Social Network. Instead of learning about one of the world's most powerful websites, we're instead treated to a tale of bursting success, followed by a sobering comedown.
The Blog
Call it The Social Network 2 because David Karp's multi-billion dollar success story with the popular blogging platform Tumblr brings us back to the the template of young kid turned Internet millionaire. After earning $250M from Yahoo! after their $1.1B acquisition of Tumblr in the summer of 2013, Karp quickly became the new poster child for social media, providing an unparalleled blogging experience that has helped inspire a unique generation of users fluent in GIFs, memes, and all things Interwebz-related.
Having founded the site at the age of 20, Karp's story proves how the Internet is in the hands of those who grow up on it. After conquering the world at such a young age, the nascent entrepreneur only makes us wonder one thing: who's got next?
I'm Feeling Lucky
As the leaders of one of the most powerful companies in the world, Sergey Brin and Larry Page make for a compelling film duo based on Google's expansive reach into all sectors of business and technology. Google has cars, Chrome, cell phones, and a boatload of mergers and acquisitions that have made them a player in countless industries. With Google, the movie is about how one small search engine exploded into a company greater than anything anyone could've imagined.