One of America’s greatest all-around athletes was born in 1888 on a Sac and Fox Reservation in Oklahoma. Jim Thorpe would go on to become the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the U.S., and made his mark not just as a pro football legend but as a pro baseball and pro basketball star, too.

Thorpe’s achievements led the Associated Press to call him the “greatest athlete” of the first 50 years of the 20th century. He would go on to play baseball for the New York Giants, Atlanta Braves, and Cincinnati Reds, and pro football for six different NFL teams.

Now Thorpe’s life story is in early development for a scripted drama series by Dallas-based Verily Storyworks, a newly launched storytelling studio and IP development company founded in January by Barry Capece.

Building ‘a better mousetrap’ for film & TV production

Barry Capece

Capece—described in his LinkedIn profile as a “diversified 30X entrepreneur, attorney, business leader, and seasoned venture catalyst—told Dallas Innovates he grew up making 8-millimeter movies as a kid in Pennsylvania, and later interned at a film production company. At his father’s urging, he went to law school and became a lawyer. But he never gave up his filmmaking dreams. 

Over his career in entertainment law and entrepreneurship, he focused on a wide range of projects, including opening a Houston nightclub called The Velvet Elvis. In the 1990s, he opened a version of the club on Walnut Hill Lane in Dallas, and moved to the city himself.  

But filmmaking was never far from his mind. Along the way, he had several never-produced brushes with film production success, including a pilot project on Cal Ripken’s career, a CBS drama series project featuring Shelley Duvall, and other concepts that didn’t get picked up. 

Then, last January, Capece launched Verily Storyworks out of Dallas. Aiming to devise “a better mousetrap” for film and TV development and production, he plans to turn epic, true-life stories into programming projects, powered by crowdfunding and a search for new screenwriting talent.

“Content drives everything, and stories are in high demand,” Capece told us. To deliver both, he aims to become “the best architect” of what he calls “blueprints” for film and TV productions.

“We particularly look for true stories,” he said. “Hence the name Verily, which means truly. Once we package them, we have four options. We either co-produce, license them, sell them, or option them.”

His ultimate goal? “To become recognized as the preeminent storyteller for stories adapted for entertainment projects. To be clear, we aren’t doing documentaries. We’re just doing true stories meant for the entertainment market.”

The Jim Thorpe project is how he first plans to do that. “THORPE” aims to tell the story of how Thorpe overcame “tragedy, oppression, and racism to become one of the greatest athletes of all time,” chronicling five decades of the legend’s life.

‘Collaborating with Thorpe family members’

Capece says he’s developing “THORPE” in collaboration with Thorpe family members and leading Native American and cultural historians—aiming to tell more than just a sports story, but a sweeping narrative about “identity, perseverance, and the enduring human spirit.”

“I have the entire Thorpe family on board, committed,” he told us. “They’re going to be doing some of the promotional pieces, sizzle reels. We have things that others can’t have or can’t get.”

John Thorpe, grandson of Jim Thorpe, said in a statement provided by Verily that he has high hopes for the project.

“Jim’s story deserves the time, depth and respect only a series of this scope can deliver,” Thorpe said. “We are proud to see Verily telling his story the right way and invite others to be part of preserving his legacy.”

Calling on public to invest in project

Capece and Verily Storyworks are currently calling on the public to invest in “THORPE,” “giving everyone a chance to co-create the soon-to-be chronicle of American triumph.”

“‘THORPE’ is the ideal story that needs to be told. It is more than a television series—it’s a long overdue tribute to a great man and the greatest athlete in modern history,” Capece said in a statement. “His epic story deserves to be told with authenticity, purpose and devotion to his legacy. At Verily, we don’t only ask the public to watch this story, we open up the opportunity to be a part of the process of building it with us. That’s how storytelling should be: fan-led, fan-driven, and fan-invested.”

Capece said participating public investors in the project’s development phase will become “capital ambassadors” and will own a piece of the project’s intellectual property, “playing an active part in bringing this long-overlooked story to life.”

Verily’s funding and screenwriting plan

According to Verily Storyworks’ website, the company aims to curate true-life stories long overlooked by Hollywood and present them as “premium projects-in-development.” Once public investors have helped bring projects closer to production, Verily says it will develop the projects through its StoryQuest emerging writers program, which is “designed to discover, nurture, and champion the next generation of storytellers.”

“The program creates a bridge between raw talent and real-world opportunity via Verily’s mission to tell authentic stories,” Verily says on its website, “and to amplify diverse and underrepresented voices—while cultivating a vibrant community of emerging writers poised to shape the future of entertainment.”

“At Verily, we believe the greatest stories are already out there waiting to be told,” Capece added in a statement. “We’re all about developing the most compelling stories into global entertainment, and we want all to have a chance to be part of the journey.”

Capece calls StoryQuest part of his “better mousetrap” for content production. 

“We look for great stories, that’s number one,” he told us. “But we also look for great writers.” He calls StoryQuest “a farm system and a filtering system for future writers.” 

“We’re filling in gaps that are missing in the industry,” he added. “There is a massive gap for writers.”

More on the crowdfunding plan

Capece said that while funding from traditional investors and potential network partners could be part of future projects, crowdfunding is key to his vision for Verily Storyworks.

“We want that regardless of how much capital the company is sitting on itself,” he said. “We always want 5,000 people that have a small ownership in something, because [they’ll be] ambassadors to the project that bring great value way ahead of time.” 

The founder said his publicly sought “capital ambassadors” will serve as “a little marketing force out there, a grassroots marketing force that has a vested interest” in his projects’ success.

Capece cited Legion M, a fan-owned entertainment company that has raised over $25 million in crowdfunding from more than 58,000 investors since its founding in 2016.

“We’re looking at a development which is a much less expensive opportunity for people to participate in the intellectual property,” Capece said of the “THORPE” project. “Everything we negotiate will be negotiated on behalf of that intellectual property, which we own as well.”

Two other projects loom

While he hopes to guide “THORPE” to fruition as a three-season TV series, Capece already has two other projects in mind. One is “Jazz Messengers,” a feature film set in New York in the mid-1950s focused on bebop musicians like Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, “a sort of ‘American Graffiti’ set among these jazz superstars.” 

The other, “Into the Light,” is about a dramatic, true-life mine rescue operation that happened in his native state of Pennsylvania in 1963. “The story has never been told, and they tried to many times,” he said of the faith-based project.

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