Doug Liman to direct bitcoin thriller Killing Satoshi starring Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson

Bitcoin’s enigmatic creator Satoshi Nakamoto is heading to the big screen in Killing Satoshi, a new conspiracy thriller from director Doug Liman. The film will star Oscar winner Casey Affleck and comedian-actor Pete Davidson, though their roles are being kept under wraps for now.

Liman, whose credits include The Bourne Identity and Mr & Mrs Smith, described the project as a modern-day David and Goliath tale. Liman and Affleck most recently worked together on Apple TV+'s heist comedy The Instigators.

Written by Nick Schenk (Gran Torino, The Mule), the film explores an elite cabal’s attempts to conceal the true identity of Nakamoto—a revelation that could threaten global power structures. According to the filmmakers, the thriller “weaves together political intrigue, high-tech espionage and a race against time as forces across the globe—spanning governments, Wall Street and Silicon Valley—wage an all-out battle for control.”

Production on Killing Satoshi begins in October in London, with a planned 2026 release. The film is being financed through Kavanaugh’s company, Proxima, in partnership with Aperture Media Partners. Kavanaugh is producing alongside Lawrence Grey (Lights Out, Yes Day) and Shane Valdez (American Idol, Dancing With the Stars), with Jared Underwood serving as executive producer. U.K.-based The Production Lens, founded by Kavanaugh, Grey, and Garret Grant (The Matrix Resurrections, Blue Beetle), will oversee the project.

The movie also marks the Hollywood return of Kavanaugh, once the head of Relativity Media, which backed acclaimed titles such as The Social Network, The Fighter, and The Fast and the Furious before its 2015 bankruptcy. In recent years, Kavanaugh has been active in the cryptocurrency space, making Killing Satoshi a passion project.