X marks the spot.
The Netflix documentary “Gold & Greed: The Hunt For Fenn’s Treasure” (now streaming) covers the wild tale of a real-life deadly treasure hunt – and, it sets up a surprise second treasure hunt.
“Within the TV and film industry, this might have been the most pitched project of the last 20 years,” director Jared McGilliard exclusively told The Post.
“You had this grand story of this amazing treasure hunt out there in the vast Rocky Mountains. But until it’s found, it’s kind of the story of a bunch of people walking around the woods, without an ending,” he continued. “So, I had known about it for a long time, but hadn’t pursued it in terms of a story until the day it was announced it was found.”
In 2010, Forrest Fenn – an eccentric Santa Fe, New Mexico millionaire art dealer who died at age 90 in 2020 – hid a cache of gold and jewels in the woods. It was a 42-pound chest loaded with pre-Columbian gold artifacts, ancient Chinese jade carvings and antique coins, worth over $1 million.
He left clues about its location in a poem (in his self-published memoir “The Thrill of the Chase”).
For a decade, hundreds of thousands of real-life “treasure hunters” swarmed the American West, hiking the woods to search for the chest, until medical student Jack Stuef found it in Wyoming in 2020.
“Gold and Greed” follows the story, including its darker parts.
Five treasure hunters died over the decade that the search was playing out, leading to public outcries that Fenn should call off the treasure hunt.
Fenn also kept Stuef’s name anonymous and didn’t release details of how or where Stuef found the treasure – leading to many angry treasure hunters forming conspiracy theories in YouTube videos and online message boards as they doubted the finder’s claim.
When Fenn died just days after vaguely announcing that it had been found, hunters also harassed Fenn’s daughter and grandson about it after his death.
“The other thing that I learned through this experience is how people invest in their own version of the truth. We see that across the world in many different forms today,” McGillard added. “But, a lot of these treasure hunters have these experiences looking for the treasure and [interpreting the clues] in different ways.”
At the start, he thought this was a “weird wacky out of the ordinary adventure” and didn’t realize “how many people would define themselves by this treasure hunt and what it would mean to them.”
“Gold & Greed” doesn’t only tell the story of the hunt for Fenn’s treasure, which ended in 2020. It also serves as the launching pad for a new hunt.
Justin Posey, a hunter who didn’t find Fenn’s Treasure but was part of the search for it, announces onscreen in the final episode that he has also buried his own treasure and left clues for people who seek it.
“I thought, ‘Oh boy, we have something pretty fun on our hands here!’” McGilliard said of when he learned of Posey’s plan. “He wanted to align [the announcement about his treasure hunt] with the launch of the series, which I thought was pretty cool.”
“Initially it was all about finding the treasure. But, after years and years and years of searching, I think people didn’t want it to end. And the value of the treasure hunt became more than just the box of gold and jewels.”
When asked if he would make a follow-up documentary if Posey’s treasure is found in a reasonable period of time, McGillard quipped, “Oh, heck yeah.”
