Jonathan Walton Media has signed a deal with Hideaway Entertainment to develop its latest true crime podcast, The Handyman of West Texas, for the screen.
Walton is a popular true crime podcast host who began founding his own media company after finding success producing a podcast series about his harrowing encounters with con artists. “The Handyman of West Texas” tells the steamy story of a male sex worker who services upper-class female clients in the oil boom town of Midland, Texas. The six-episode podcast series ended in January.
“Mickey,” portrayed as a sex worker in the series, makes home calls posing as a handyman hired to perform odd jobs at the home of a successful oil company executive. The series also explores the impact of Mickey’s day job, the heavy lifting of natural gas extraction and hydraulic fracturing. Mickey claims he has been hired by “hundreds” of women for sexual encounters in and around the Midlands on holidays in recent years.
“The podcast speaks for itself. The global audience the podcast has built is not passive. They are hooked and want to know more. They are drawn to Mickey and the contradictions of this world, and we see an opportunity to extend his story into a unique, ambitious and flavorful experience for our viewers to enjoy,” said Ryan Cassels of Hideaway.
Walton is working on the adaptation with Cassels, Jonathan Gray and Jean-Luc de Fanti, who also worked on The Hideaway. Cassels brought the project in-house. Walton and his producing partner Evan Goldstein will serve as executive producers for Jonathan Walton Media. The co-creators have not yet decided whether the adaptation will be a feature film or a multi-episode series.
Walton is a local TV journalist (who worked in Houston and San Antonio) turned reality TV producer and podcaster. He is enthusiastic about spreading his wings as a storyteller.
Walton’s professional life took an unexpected turn after the release of her 2021 podcast, Queen of the Con. Since then, Walton has become a prolific producer of well-known audio series, including “Cocaine Air,” “Quarterbacks and Cheaters,” and subsequent five seasons under the “Queen of Fraud” banner that focused on cases as diverse as “Athlete Whispers,” “California Girls,” and “Unreal Housewives.” Last year, Walton published a memoir, “Anatomy of a Swindler,” which doubles as a how-to guide for spotting scammers and avoiding manipulation.
“I’ve always had an unintentional knack for finding and befriending fascinating characters, whether they’re con artists, cocaine kingpins, or sex workers in oil fracking,” Walton said. “I’ve learned that things are rarely as they first appear, and that the most fascinating and original stories are always hidden between the lines. And I always seem to find them by being stubbornly curious and asking lots of uncomfortable questions.”
Hideaway “has the history and pedigree of turning the West Texas Handyman podcast into a rich and meaningful cultural touchstone on screen, and I can’t wait for the world to see what we create together,” Walton added.
The Hideaway is currently in post-production on the feature film Alone at Dawn, directed by Ron Howard and starring Anne Hathaway and Adam Driver, for Amazon MGM Studios and Imagine Entertainment. Hideaway was represented by Eisner’s Christian Simmons in the deal with Jonathan Walton Media.
