Nicholas Verso To Write & Direct Scott Johnson Murder Case Film ‘The Surface Of Venus’ For Fremantle & Invention Studios

EXCLUSIVE: The murder investigation of Scott Johnson, which highlighted a slew of homophobic killings in Australia in the 1980s, is to be explored in a new feature film.

Nicholas Verso (Boys In The Trees) is writing and directing The Surface of Venus for Fremantle and Invention Studios. The latter’s Nicholas Weinstock and Divya D’Souza are producing.

Scott Johnson, a young gay American man who had recently moved to Australia, was found dead at the bottom of a cliff near Sydney in 1988.  Although the case was initially ruled a suicide by Australian police, Scott’s brother Steve didn’t believe it – and spent the next 35 years on the quest for justice for Scott and the truth behind his death.  This exposed a massive and decades-long cover-up and a guilty conviction for the man who pushed Scott off the cliff only last year, in 2023. 

The case has helped to unveil a secret history of more than 50 possible murders of gay men by homophobic mobs in Australia since the 1970s:  a controversy that continues to roil that country and human rights advocates around the globe.

Invention Studios was founded by Weinstock, Ben Stiller’s former producing partner, in 2021 and he signed a first-look deal with Fremantle and its U.S. President of Scripted Programming Dante Di Loreto in 2022.

Fremantle is behind feature films including Priscilla, the Timothée Chalamet-led, Luca Guadagnino-directed Bones and All and Emma Stone-fronted, Yorgos Lanthimos-directed Poor Things.

Weinstock is represented by CAA and by Aron Baumel and Will Jacobson of Goodman Genow Schenkman Smelkinson + Christopher, LLP. Divya D’Souza is represented by Trey Brown at Dorado Law. Verso is represented by represented by Echo Lake Entertainment and attorney Marios Rush.