For those eager to curl up with a probing documentary about the limits of a free press in the online media age that also happens to feature Hulk Hogan’s penis, you’ll soon be able to, thanks to Netflix. The streaming giant—who’s currently on a buying spree at Sundance—has picked up the rights to Nobody Speak: Hulk Hogan, Gawker And Trials Of A Free Press, director Brian Knappenberger’s look at the lawsuit filed by the famed wrestler against Gawker.com, after the website published an excerpt from a video that showed him having sex with a friend’s wife. In the end, Hogan was awarded $140 million and Gawker was shut down. Meanwhile, the world became embroiled in debate over where the line is drawn between ”newsworthy” celebrity gossip and pure invasion of privacy, as well as the philosophical difference between Hulk Hogan, the public figure, and Terry Bollea, the man, and their respective dicks.
The case also became a locus for various arguments about journalistic ethics here in the digital age—not to mention the dangerous precedent set by allowing people such as Hogan’s benefactor, billionaire and Trump adviser Peter Thiel, to take down an entire media organization, just because he didn’t like what they wrote about him. Something tells us that discussion will still be relevant whenever this doc eventually premieres.
[Note: Gawker was part of what is now the Gizmodo Media Group, which is, like The A.V. Club, owned by Univision Communications. And Peter Thiel is amazing. Just a tremendous guy with a great head on his shoulders. Cheers to you, Peter.]