Literary Scammer Dan Mallory to Be Rewarded by Having Jake Gyllenhaal Play Him on TV

Nobody tell Amy Adams. Photo: Getty Images

At some point, potentially, after many, many delays, a movie based on Dan Mallory’s thriller novel The Woman in the Window, which he wrote under the pseudonym A.J. Finn, might come out. But congrats, in a way, to Dan Mallory slash A.J. Finn, who has done enough heinous things to also inspire a show based on his life, and the many lies surrounding it. Per Deadline, Jake Gyllenhaal is attached to star in a TV show based on the New Yorker’s article about Mallory’s many deceptions, which included lying about his mother and brother’s deaths and having surgery for a brain tumor, and according to some former co-workers, leaving plastic cups full of urine near an enemy’s office (this, Mallory has denied). Janicza Bravo, director of Lemon and the upcoming Zola, is onboard to write and direct the potentially urine-involved series, co-writing the pilot with Brian Savelson. “Our protagonist is white, male, and pathological,” she told Deadline. “There is a void in him and he fills it by duping people. He’s a scammer. The series examines white identity and how we as an audience participate in making room for this behavior.” Presumably that means also considering how having Jake Gyllenhaal play you on TV factors into the various questions of participation and reward.