Steve Wynn TV Drama in Development

Posted on: March 4, 2024, 02:11h. 

Last updated on: March 5, 2024, 12:41h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Myths.

A biopic is in development about the most influential — and now, controversial — figure in gaming history.

Steve Wynn smiles
Steve Wynn smiles at the start of his meeting with officials of the Macau Tender Committee for Gaming Concessions on Feb. 20, 2002. (Image: Associated Press)

The Rise & Fall of Steve Wynn will be adapted for the screen by Christina Binkley from her own 2018 New York Times bestseller, Winner Takes All: How Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Won — and Lost — the High Stakes Gamble to Own Las Vegas.

From Bingo to Billions

The biopic will cover Wynn’s meteoric rise from scrappy bingo parlor operator to billionaire casino mogul, and then out of the gaming industry altogether. That’s after a 2018 Wall Street Journal article accused him of engaging in a “decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct” toward female staff.

Coproducing the biopic will be Binkley, along with Scott Jay Kaplan (Queenmaker, Red Penguins) and Emmet McDermott (White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch), whose production company is called CoverStory.

“We are immensely lucky to work with Christina on this larger-than-life story,” McDermott said in a press release about the deal.

According to the release, The Rise & Fall of Steve Wynn will be “set primarily in the 1990s,” and illustrates “how Wynn’s unparalleled drive for power ultimately cost him everything, creating a vacuum of power filled by his ex-wife, Elaine.”

No distribution deal has been announced.

Wynn has denied all sexual assault accusations against him and has never been convicted of a crime. However, the controversy caused him to resign from his position as chairman and CEO of the company that bears his name. He also sold his stake in Wynn Resorts in a bid to protect its gambling licenses in Nevada and Massachusetts.