Hollywood’s Darryl Rigby set to visit Ghana to shoot ‘Black Stars’ movie

The award-winning US writer who is working on a Hollywood thriller, a spin-off of what many have described as the “bizarre” yet true story of Ghana's Brazil 2014 World Cup cash drama is making plans to visit the country.

Darryl Wharton Rigby who was called into the Morning Starr programme from Japan said he wants to come down as part of his research for the movie to learn about the people of Ghana and the events that led to the infamous $3 million cash saga.

Ghana's Black Stars made the news in Brazil when they had $3 m in appearance fees airlifted to them before taking to the field against Portugal, amidst threats of boycotting the game altogether.

“As soon as we are able to gather some financial resources we will be in Ghana,” he said, adding that “coming to Ghana would even inform the story a lot. In terms of researching and being on the ground and just getting a sense of how this whole thing worked.”

Rigby's screenplay centres on the story of a courier tasked with bringing $3m to Brazil in an effort to stop the Ghanaian football team quitting the competition.

The script follows the courier as things go twisted when he is “ambushed on the way to make the drop, leaving him less than 12 hours to recover the stolen money,” he added.

When asked why he did not want to tell the story as it occurred in reality, Rigby told Morning Starr host Kafui Dey it would not have been thrilling enough to make a hit upon release.

“When I first read the story about the airlifting and the money, I just thought it would be a lot more interesting and more entertaining [adding a little twist to it].’What if something actually happened to the money?' I asked myself before deciding in the plot,” Rigby said.

Although he was not sure how much the movie’s production was going to cost, Rigby revealed they are looking around the middle of 2015 to complete the project.