The Many Lives of Aubrey Lee Price
Limited Series | Crime, Drama
Based On
The article “The Many Lives of Aubrey Lee Price” by Charles Bethea, published by Atlanta Magazine
Quick Hitter
In the beginning… Aubrey was a jovial, beloved Georgia pastor who built his flock on mastery of the Good Lord’s word, firm handshakes and unwavering smiles, and – most of all – the idea that God wants us to be rich. Yes, Aubrey is also “Lee,” a man who has bought into the Prosperity Gospel. A facet of Christian communities who believe that following The Bible will bring you actual wealth – not like “treasures in heaven,” but full on dollar bills. And in the mid-to-late aughts, this was a pretty great thing to believe, because there was no end in sight to the dollars you could stack up. And stack them Lee did, until he was no longer just a pastor but also a private equity mover and shaker. And then he was running a huge mortgage institution. And then he was underwater and stealing from Peter to pay Paul and then he was a nervous wreck and then he was bloated and doing drugs and racing around keeping a million secrets from his family and community until... the “Price” timeline. This is not our khaki-wearing, big-grin, blonde-haired Aubrey or even our jittery, money-and-coke-addicted Lee. This is hair dyed jet-black, goatee, bad ass South American drug lord, PRICE. He’s making outrageous moves and we don’t know if we should even believe what we’re seeing, but one thing is clear: Aubrey Lee Price’s attempt to become the Gringo El Chapo down in South America is what gets him killed. Or so his family, and the authorities, believed.
When you strip away his mistakes and his schemes and the logline – “Georgia pastor becomes a financial mogul, gets in over his head, fakes his own death, and becomes a drug lord in South America" – what you find is a story of a man who hit rock bottom and then found his real belief. When he stopped pretending to believe in God (to have a church to lead, to take over a bank, to get rich, to be a GOOD PERSON)... and when he stopped mistaking freedom for the wind in his hair and a gun in his hand... and when he reached the lowest of the lows, Aubrey Lee Price had the most stunning revelation yet: he found that he actually believed.
The Many Lives of Aubrey Lee Price shows the hypocrisy of religion when it gets warped, but the purity of belief when it comes from the soul. What being "free" might actually look like. The story might feel cynical, it might feel like it pokes fun, but it’s actually not that – it’s a story that says “don’t let yourself hit the nadir before you find out what matters to you.”
With
Status
In Development
