A script following the antics of eccentric millionaire John McAfee, who may or may not have been doing some illicit substances while holed up in Central America and who may or may not have had something to do with the 2012 death of a neighbor who might have killed McAfee's dogs, is in the works. The team behind the project, which is just barely off the ground, is Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the guys behind other biopics of eccentrics like Man On The Moon (about Andy Kaufman), The People Vs. Larry Flynt, and the Ed Wood. They're currently finishing up a miniseries about OJ Simpson, and will then tackle the crazy, as-yet-unresolved story of McAfee, as Deadline Hollywood reports.
The script will be based on this terrific Wired article by Joshua Davis, which Davis began researching six months before the murder, around the time McAfee was arrested by Belizean authorities on suspicion of producing methamphetamine. McAfee's response the night of the military-style ambush at his compound: "That's a startling hypothesis, sir. Because I haven't sold drugs since 1983."
The truth seems pretty complicated, though, and McAfee's demeanor, intelligence, and mental state have done everything to obfuscate whatever that may be. In any event, it probably involved bath salts, but McAfee denies making or doing the stuff, despite some internet evidence to the contrary. No matter what you think of him, it is a story that just keeps on giving.
McAfee, 67, developed the anti-virus software known to many in the 90s and early aughts for crippling your computer with its ill-timed updates. He moved to Belize in 2009, following on some devastating losses in his investments, to pursue a retirement of consorting with underage women and being generally paranoid. It was at one of his homes, on the island of Ambergris Caye, that he was wanted by authorities as a person of interest in the killing of a neighbor, a fellow American expat named Greg Faull. Though he was never charged with the crime, he hid out from Belize police and began writing a detailed blog account of being on the lam. He later turned up in Guatemala, after allowing himself to be followed around and filmed by Vice, and later made it back to the U.S. via Miami, where no one had any reason to arrest him. He's now living in Portland, Oregon, and recently released the spoof video below about how to uninstall his eponymous software. "Although I’ve had nothing to do with this company for 15 years," he says, "I still get volumes of mail asking how do I uninstall this software? I have no idea."
