The Man Who Tried to Buy the World

In 1994, Jean-Marie Messier had a dream - to change a 150 year-old French water company into a media empire to compete with anything America could produce. He would spend over 100 billion dollars. At the height of his triumphs, Messier was a hero of the New Economy, a man who had successfully brought together the old and new with his unique vision. By 2000, the empire combined music, publishing, telecom, cinema, theme parks, water supply, video games, commuter trains, the Internet and waste management. In 2002, as the financial markets fell, Messier's debt became impossible and he was ousted in a boardroom cup. This portrait of this brilliant, but flawed businessmen is a real-life morality tale.