We’re sorry to announce this, Internet, but Hollywood is making another movie about hackers. The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Mark Wahlberg has signed on to produce a still-unnamed thriller about a “ruthless” hacker who hijacks the webcams of teens at a suburban high school.
There are few things more silly and over-the-top than your average Hollywood portrayal of a hacker: An omnipotent techno god who can break into top-secret government databases with a few flourishing keystrokes thanks to his souped up laptop—which is pretty much a direct conduit to The Matrix—and the half-dozen Hot Pockets he downs every third second.
There is some hope for this Wahlberg production, however: The script will be based loosely on David Kushner’s blockbuster feature, “The Hacker is Watching,” published earlier this year in GQ.
That article starred Luis Mijangos, 31, a wheelchair-bound Californian who wrote a program that gave him remote access webcams over the Internet, which he used to surreptitiously record women and then blackmail them.
Mijangos was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to six years in prison last year. His story is full of ripe details made for a Hollywood retelling. He is, for instance, the son of a Mexican federales officer who was abducted and tortured, leaving a blood clot in his leg that would eventually kill him. Another fun fact: At the time of his crimes, Mijangos was living at home with his mother.
Let’s hope Wahlberg’s production tells it honestly. The last thing anyone needs is another movie like this.
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