Gaumont USA Options ‘Opus,’ an Explosive Opus Dei Exposé

L.A.-based Gaumont USA has optioned audiovisual rights to “Opus, financial journalist Gareth Gore’s explosive exposé of Opus Dei, sparked by the sudden 2017 collapse of Spain’s Banco Popular, one of the country’s biggest high-street banks, is what Gore calls “one of the largest bank failures ever seen in Europe.”

The deal was struck by Gaumont USA and the media rights team at Curtis Brown, which represents Gore.

Considered one among Europe’s most worthwhile monetary establishments, Gaumont USA notes, Banco Popular was bought to Banco Santander for the symbolic sum of €1 ($1.2). 

Dispatched to report on Banco Popular’s fall, Gore assumed that   it was a well-recognized case of “unbridled ambition, poor decision making.” The more he dug, however, he realized that “huge pieces of the puzzle were missing.”    

Published in 2025 by Simon & Schuster in English in hardback and paper and by Crítica in Spanish, Gore’s “Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Within the Catholic Church” locates those items. 

“Banco Popular,” Gaumont USA said in a press release Wednesday, was “allegedly used for decades as more than just a bank.” “Under the stewardship of a group of celibate men who controlled the bank for decades and had sworn allegiance to Opus Dei, the powerful and often controversial Catholic organization, the bank was slowly turned into a cash machine for Opus Dei, which leveraged that financial power to expand its social influence and political reach, first within Spain and later across the world.” 

“Opus,” Gore’s ebook, certainly exposes just how current, startling and consequential that energy stays, including in the U.S. 

Gaumont USA goals to develop “Opus” as a “captivating story that removes the veil from the opaque corridors where religion, money and politics converge,” it added.

“‘Opus’ is not just a financial story; it is a story about influence and accountability,” said Nicolas Atlan, President, Gaumont USA. “Gareth’s reporting is rigorous, layered and deeply cinematic. It exposes a system that operated in plain sight yet largely without scrutiny, and that tension makes it extraordinarily relevant for global audiences today.”

Christian Gabela, Gaumont USA SVP & head of Spain, LatAm, and U.S.-Latino, added, “The book reads like a political thriller, but every twist is grounded in meticulous investigative work. The intersection of faith, money and politics creates natural dramatic stakes, complex characters and moral ambiguity. It is precisely the kind of true story that compels audiences because it asks how power is built, protected and ultimately revealed.”

“I can’t wait to start work on bringing this incredible story to the screen,” Gore added. “Reporting the book was like entering a surreal parallel world where nothing was quite what it seemed and it’s exciting to share that world with a wider audience. I’m absolutely thrilled to be working with one of the best teams in the business – the people that brought us award-winning series like ‘Narcos,’ ‘Lupin’ and so many more.”

The project continues the company’s strategy of securing IP that has each local and global resonance, Gaumont USA famous. 

That IP could also be inner, sourcing Gaumont’s movie and tv library, tailored for Mexico, Spain or Brazil, or exterior, utilizing third occasion pre-existing IP to adapt whether or not books or the inspiration of real occasions and real people tales, Gabela told Variety just before October’s Iberseries & Platino Industria in Madrid.  

The “Opus” makeover targets particularly the Spanish market. The dramatic expansion of Opus Dei worldwide affords it, however, far broader relevance.