Writer on the Storm

From exposés of espionage to harpooning the biggest fish in white-collar crime, Billion Dollar Whale author Tom Wright is just getting started

Coco Marett

It’s about 3.30 pm in Singapore and the sky has suddenly gone dark. Thunder cracks like a whip every few minutes, shaking the windows and sending the dogs in my apartment building into a frenzy. It’s the perfect setting for some storytelling, and I’ve got one heck of a storyteller—Tom Wright—on the line.

Together with Bradley Hope, his close friend and colleague from their previous lives as journalists for The Wall Street Journal, Wright co-wrote Billion Dollar Whale, the true story of disgraced Malaysian financier Jho Low, who siphoned billions of dollars from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd, or 1MDB.

Described as “thrilling” by Bill Gates and named a Best Book of 2018 by The Financial Times and Fortune, Billion Dollar Whale was also a tale of obscene wealth. Not only had Low used the money to finance elections and purchase luxury real estate, he had Gatsbylike aspirations to climb the social ladder by throwing over-the-top parties and giving extravagant gifts.

Low once gave Paris Hilton a US$250,000 chip at a Las Vegas casino, spent US$8 million on diamond jewelry for rumored girlfriend Miranda Kerr, bought a US$325,000 Ferrari for Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries’ wedding, and gifted Picasso and Basquiat paintings to Leonardo DiCaprio. He even helped finance the Hollywood movie The Wolf of Wall Street and received a personal shout-out from DiCaprio as he accepted his Golden Globe for his starring role in the film as former stockbroker and convicted felon Jordan Belfort.

In a cruel twist of irony, Low will find himself the subject of a biopic detailing his own downfall as SK Global Entertainment, the production company behind Crazy Rich Asians, has bought the film rights for Billion Dollar Whale.

It’s a development that prompted Wright and Hope to establish Project Brazen in January 2021, a company specializing in true stories told through podcasts, books, and articles for adaptation for film and TV. In November 2021, The Hollywood Reporter reported that SK Global had tapped House Of Cards creator Beau Willimon and Jordan Tappis, his partner in production company Westward, to develop and produce Billion Dollar Whale. Screenwriter David Henry Hwang, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and playwright behind titles like M Butterfly, will write and executive produce the series.

“There’s such a hunger for real stories,” Wright says.