Following his arrest, Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has become a trending topic in Hollywood, with a documentary, another documentary, a TV show, and a news special all in the works.
Big movie day
December 17, 2024: Luigi Mangione, suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4, will be the subject of dueling documentaries. Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions and Anonymous Content were the first to announce, per Variety. Last year, Gibney was “hugely excited†to announce that he is working on an Elon Musk documentary as well. His previous work includes the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, a 2007 doc about the killing of an Afghani taxi driver by U.S. soldier, and his 2005 breakout, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, about the collapse of the energy company. The new documentary will not just follow Mangione but also explore larger questions about the value of life and death in America, Variety reported. We assume that will be entirely different from …
… This other documentary! Also announced December 16, the second Mangione-focused documentary is produced by Stephen Robert Morse, who directed the Emmy-nominated 2016 Amanda Knox for Netflix, per Variety. “This case is complex and raises important questions about vigilantism, the devastating cost of a privatized healthcare system and the inevitability of violence when peaceful change is seen as impossible,†Morse said in a statement. If anybody else has a Luigi-mentary they’d like to announce, submit an invoice and we’ll get back to you.
What about TV?
December 17, 2024: Investigation Discovery, the network that recently made Quiet on Set, is putting together an hour-long special that aims to air in February 2025. The working title is Who Is Luigi Mangione?, and it will be led by Dan Abrams. We can safely expect that the special will be released on Max, since both networks are owned by Warner Bros. The special will examine how “a young man of such wealth and privilege could seemingly commit such a heinous crime,†per a release. Of course TV had to get in on this.
20/20 sees the vision and the first release date
December 17, 2024: It looks like ABC News will be the first to get a Luigi Mangione documentary out, just two weeks after the murder of Brian Thompson. Manhunt: Luigi Mangione and the CEO Murder — A Special Edition of 20/20 is set to premiere on Thursday, December 19 at 10 P.M. on ABC (for those without cable, it’ll stream on Hulu the next day.) The special includes a never-before-heard audio recording of Mangione speaking about his travel throughout Asia. The press release, per Variety, also promises the special will reveal “new details about the hunt for the suspect, examines what may have driven alleged killer Luigi Mangione to murder, and profiles new reporting on the writings found in Mangione’s backpack, what police are calling a handwritten confession criticizing the healthcare system, and the three ominous words written on the shell casings.†Below is the trailer for the special.