The man at the heart of the Second Life story, which Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski seeks to turn into a movie, was caught off guard by news of the film adaptation.
After Crecente posted the news of Verbinski's purchase of the rights to the 2007 Wall Street Journal article about a man cheating on his wife in Second Life, I hopped onto the virtual world in order to ask Ric Hoogestraat's avatar Dutch what he thought about his situation possibly turning into a film. Not surprisingly, he hadn't heard anything about it.
The story belongs to the Wall Street Journal now, so it wasn't necessary for either the paper or Verbinski to get in touch with Hoogestraat whatsoever. Pity though. His avatar has an extremely kick-ass pirate-themed sim in SL that I'm sure the Pirates of the Caribbean director would just love.
While trying to contact Dutch, I got a pretty good idea of what had happened since the original article ran back in 2007.
According to his profile in Second Life, he now lives in Arizona with the player of the avatar he was cheating on his wife with, having married her in December of last year, several months after the article ran in which he repeatedly assured his wife that it was just role-playing. I guess that whole bit had changed.
Just a tip here folks. If your spouse is married on Second Life, they are cheating on you. You generally do not get partnered in SL for fun. If it comes to that, there is something seriously wrong with your relationship.
Don't worry about Ric and his new wife, however. Apparently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is doing a documentary on the couple, which looks to be so in-depth that he didn't feel the need to follow up with me on the story.
I think the CBC documentary - if they dont fuck us over - will be the only follow-up we need to do
Here's hoping the loving couple stays un-fucked.