The Kartemquin Films-backed documentary "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail," about a tiny New York City Chinatown bank prosecuted for mortgage fraud following the 2008 financial crisis, is heading toward a feature film adaptation, directed by Justin Lin of the "Fast and Furious" franchise.
Steve James directed the 2016 Oscar-nominated documentary. Chicago's Mark Mitten served as a producer on that project; he's listed as producer (James will be an executive producer) on the forthcoming feature, a joint effort of Participant and Perfect Storm Entertainment.
The tiny, family-owned Abacus Federal Savings Bank was singled out by the New York City district attorney's office for mortgage fraud, while the nation's largest and arguably more egregious financial institutions evaded legal scrutiny. The Sung family's legal battle lasted five years; the documentary is at once an immigration story and a tale of determined grown siblings fighting for their father's reputation.
In a Participant statement earlier this week Lin called "Abacus" a "rich, poignant American story that needs to be told."
Depending on the production and release timeline, which remains dependent on Lin's busy schedule and the coronavirus pandemic's disruption of the movie industry, the film may come out in late 2021. It may also be a year or more after that. The Taiwanese-American director's fifth "Fast and Furious" movie, originally scheduled for a 2020 release, has been rescheduled for 2021.
The first screenwriter hired to adapt "Abacus," Chinese American playwright and screenwriter Kenneth Lin, has now been joined by James Schamus, a frequent Ang Lee collaborator whose credits include "The Ice Storm" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
Though it made just over $100,000 in limited theatrical release, "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail" enjoyed a strong critical ride as well as national exposure on the PBS "Frontline" series. It was later nominated for an Academy Award in the feature documentary category. The feature adaptation, casting to be announced, drops the documentary's subtitle.
Depending on the production and release timeline, it's likely to be the first Kartemquin project to become a fictionalized feature film. Earlier this summer, at the 2020 Sundance Institute lab, Kartemquin-affiliated filmmaker Bing Liu workshopped his screenplay "Chinks," freely adapting his own Rockford, Ill.-set documentary essay "Minding the Gap."
Over the years, the Steve James-directed 1994 phenomenon "Hoop Dreams" has attracted feature film adaptation interest, but nothing came to fruition.
James worked with Mitten on the 2014 Roger Ebert portrait "Life Itself," another Kartemquin documentary.
