Shohei Ohtani Drama Hits Starz—But It’s His Translator’s Secret Gambling Fever That’s the Real Showstopper!
Added on December 9, 2025 inTV News Cards
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Ever wonder what happens when the cosmic chaos of Mercury in retrograde collides with an MLB gambling scandal? Well, buckle up, because the rollercoaster tale of Ippei Mizuhara—the once low-profile translator for Shohei Ohtani who spun from zero to international icon and then tumbled into a whirlwind of gambling woes—has just landed at Starz. This Lionsgate TV project, now in development, promises to dish out all the juicy ins and outs of a scandal that rocked the sports world to its core. With showrunner Alex Convery, fresh off the sports-centric hit Air, teaming up with the ever-dynamic Justin Lin behind the camera, this isn’t your average courtroom drama. So, as the stars align in suspicious ways, who’s really calling the shots in this story of loyalty, betrayal, and the high stakes of fame? LEARN MORE
A Lionsgate TV project about the gambling scandal surrounding Ippei Mizuhara, the former translator for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, has found a home.
Starz is developing the drama, which will center on Mizuhara, who in March 2024 was fired by the Dodgers after Ohtani’s representatives accused him of stealing millions of dollars from the four-time MVP to pay off gambling debts. Alex Convery (Air) is set to serve as showrunner and writer. Justin Lin (the Fast and Furious franchise, SWAT) is attached to direct and will co-write the story. Convery and Lin will executive produce with Scott Delman; sportswriter Albert Chen is a co-exec producer.
Lionsgate TV has been working on the project since April 2024, with Delman and Chen shepherding it throughout. Convery and Lin came aboard later in the process.
Lionsgate is the former parent company of Starz; the two formally separated earlier this year, with Starz becoming a standalone, publicly traded company.
The logline for the Mizuhara drama says the potential series will tell “the inside story of Shohei Ohtani’s translator Ippei Mizuhara, who journeys from unemployed drifter to international icon only to find himself tangled in a gambling scandal that rocked the sports world.” Mizuhara pleaded guilty to charges of bank fraud and tax evasion in June 2024 and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. Ohtani was not implicated in the gambling allegations.
Convery has made sports stories a specialty. In addition to Air, the 2023 film about Nike’s courting of a young Michael Jordan, Convery is set to write the screenplay for The Tiger Slam, about Tiger Woods’ run of winning four consecutive major golf tournaments in 2000 and 2001. He is repped by UTA, Untitled Entertainment and Yorn Levine.
Lin recently signed on to helm a film adaptation of the Helldivers video game at Sony and is set to direct Brzrkr, an adaptation of a comic book created by Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt. He is repped by CAA and Sloane Offer.
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