Last year, an incredible story emerged about the hunt for $2 million of treasure buried deep in the Rocky Mountains. Now, the epic story will be turned into a documentary called “Treasure Hunters.”
Variety broke the news earlier today. Filmmaker Theo Love will direct the film, while Vox Media Studios and Nomadica Films will produce. Netflix will eventually distribute it. You might know Love from hit films like “Alabama Snake” and “The Legend of Cocaine Island.”
The story comes from Benjamin Wallace, who wrote and published the article in November 2020 in New York Magazine. The article’s called “The Great 21st-Century Treasure Hunt,” and it follows the “sometimes maddening, occasionally deadly, brain-scrambling” hunt for treasure in the Rockies. Here’s the synopsis for the documentary:
“‘Treasure Hunters’ follows the true story of Forrest Fenn, an art collector, who buried a $2 million treasure in 2010 filled with rare gold coins in an unknown location with 24 cryptic verses offering the only hint to its whereabouts. More than 400,000 searched for it, including five people who died. Finally, this past June, a former journalist named Jack Stuef came forward claiming to have found it. So why does no one believe him? Is the treasure still out there somewhere?”
It’s a wild story already, and it promises to be a super engaging documentary. There’s no news yet on production starting, let alone a release date. But hopefully, it all comes sooner rather than later.
What’s the Story Behind the New ‘Treasure Hunters’ Documentary?
Author and art dealer Forrest Fenn buried treasure somewhere in the Rocky Mountains a decade ago. Last year, right after Wallace’s New York Magazine article came out in November, a man named Jack Stuef came forward and said he found the buried treasure.
In June 2020, Fenn announced the treasure had been found, according to NPR. He told treasure hunters in July that it was located in Wyoming, so some people could have “closure” who searched in other states. At first, Stuef and the Fenns didn’t disclose the winner’s identity because they feared him being targeted by fellow hunters. In December 2020, Stuef came forward and confirmed he found the treasure because his name would become public anyway after one woman filed a lawsuit against whoever found the treasure.
But many people didn’t believe Stuef actually found it. After hundreds of thousands of people searched the Rocky Mountains, how did he know to look in Wyoming? After hours of poring over the poem hidden in Fenn’s book, how did he unlock the clues to its location? Eventually, Fenn’s grandson had to confirm Stuef is who he says he is, and that he did find the treasure. Fenn himself couldn’t do it because he passed away in Sept. 2020 at age 90.
“We congratulate Jack on finding and retrieving the treasure chest, and we hope that this confirmation will help to dispel the conjecture, conspiratorial nonsense, and refusals to accept the truth,” wrote Fenn’s grandson, Shiloh Forrest Old.
