British cinema operators are looking forward to packed audiences when Rogue Trader is released next year. Ewan MacGregor, the young Scottish actor who starred in Trainspotting, tops the bill in a story of deceit and double dealing by a young trader who brought down Britain's most venerable bank.
Based on Nick Leeson's account of his dealing on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange, the film is into its final stages of production, while Leeson's family fear the 31-year-old may be acting out the final scene of his own life.
The world was incredulous in February 1995 when news broke that Leeson's illegal dealing in Japanese derivatives had caused Barings Bank to fold with losses of GBP680 million (HK$8.57 billion).
After Leeson was sentenced to 6.5 years in Changi jail the spotlight switched to his wife, Lisa, as the public lapped up the love story of a wife standing by her man. She took a job as an air stewardess to qualify for cheap flights to visit her husband in prison.
But by 1996, when stories began to emerge of Leeson's laddish lifestyle while travelling around Asia on business for Barings, Lisa left him to rebuild her life on her own.
'Lisa felt she had been betrayed on a pretty massive scale,' said a friend. 'She was angry at everything she had been through as a result of what he had done,' one friend said.
'In fact she only visited him once in jail and that was more than a year ago. I understand Nick took the news pretty well.' Leeson has been sustained in jail by packages of books sent by friends in Watford, the North London suburb where he grew up. But his choice in reading had more to do with his passion for Manchester City football club than an interest in high finance.