Ross Ulbricht, Pardoned Silk Road Founder, to Speak Out in Surprise Documentary (Exclusive)
After more than a decade of inspiring feature films, documentaries, books and podcasts, Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht will tell his story in an upcoming documentary he participated in from prison.
The project arrives as Ulbricht enjoys an improbable Hollywood ending. He was freed from federal prison in Tucson, Arizona on Tuesday after receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump, a pledge Trump made in May at the Libertarian National Convention.
Ulbricht was sentenced to two life sentences, plus forty years, after creating the illegal online drug market Silk Road, which was described as “the Amazon for Drugs.” According to the FBI, the site generated hundreds of millions in sales and made Ulbricht the subject of a dramatic manhunt, culminating in his arrest at a San Francisco library in 2013.
Despite the intense interest in his case, Ulbricht granted no interviews to the press following his 2015 conviction (he did send in a recording of himself speaking to a Bitcoin conference in 2021). But since 2019, filmmakers Jonah Tulis and Blake J. Harris worked under the radar to capture more than 60 hours of interviews with Ulbricht, and are now nearing completion on a documentary. They are aiming for a 2025 release, with Submarine handling worldwide sales as well as producing the doc.
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“Our interviews are incredibly in-depth and cover the entire gamut of Ulbricht’s life,” says co-director Harris, an author. “How he went from being a literal Eagle Scout to the center of a global manhunt.”
The site had a role in popularizing Bitcoin, as it was the currency of choice on Silk Road. After his conviction, Ulbricht became a cause célèbre among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, as well as libertarians, who shared his ideals.
“Silk Road was a phenomenon,” says co-director Tulis. “But there are many misconceptions about what it was and who Ross really is. Our film is a no-holds- barred look at what really happened and how things wound up spiraling out of control.”
The team also interviewed members of the law enforcement who helped investigate the Silk Road.
Multiple Silk Road projects arrived following Ulbricht’s arrest, but none were made with his participation. Journalist Nick Bilton’s celebrated and painstakingly reported 2017 book American Kingpin revealed an intimate look at the inner workings of Silk Road, but relied on journals, chat logs and interviews with the players other than Ulbricht. On the feature film front, Lionsgate released the 2021 feature Silk Road to middling reviews, while The Coen Bros. developed their own Silk Road feature for 20th Century Fox, which never came to fruition. Meanwhile, Bill & Ted star Alex Winter directed the Ulbricht doc Deep Web a decade ago, with Keanu Reeves narrating.
Producers on the new project include Dan Braun, Ben Braun, Rick Brookwell, Matt Burke, Tulis and Harris. Executive producers are Douglas Banker, Michael Hughes, Greg Lake, Josh Braun and Joe Grano.
Harris and Tulis previously worked on the 2020 documentary Console Wars, about the battle for the video game market between Nintendo and Sega in the 1990s, as well the 2022 doc GameStop: Rise of the Players, about the memestock phenomenon. Harris is also an author, with his works including the Console Wars book, the Oculus title The History of the Future, and a forthcoming biography of Larry David.
