Also Productions Sets International Sights With Fact-Based Geopolitical Thriller ‘Chain Reaction’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Ben Croll Montreal-based Also Productions, the rising premium outfit behind the Series Mania title “Disobey” and the popular police drama “The Sketch Artist,” will next hit international waters with the facts-are-stranger-than-fiction geopolitical thriller “Chain Reaction.” Based on the best-selling book from investigative journalist Vincent Larouche, the development project will untangle a multinational web that connected Quebecois businessmen to Swiss bankers to FBI agents to former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, telling the unbelievable true story of a corruption scandal that nearly brought down the Canadian government. “The Sketch Artist” head writer André Gulluni will freely adapt Larouche’s page-turning exposé, which revealed the misdoings of SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based construction company alleged to have bribed and defrauded the Libyan government out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The ensuing (and cascading) financial scandal would soon rope in everyone from top politicos to Texas-based associates of Pablo Escobar. “They were excellent at what they did,” reads the book description. “[From] hiring mercenaries, to prostitution, bribes, forged documents, or cooked books — for some SNC-Lavalin executives, anything went when it came to winning a contract.” Envisioned as an eight-part ensemble drama, this loose adaptation will keep the broad strokes (and larger than life characters – including Gaddafi himself) of the source text while opening the narrative to international collaboration. “The storyline could take place anywhere in the world,” says Also co-founder Sophie Lorain. “The name of the company is totally unimportant.