Directed by Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan, Gold tells the story of Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey), a mining entrepreneur who teams up with geologist Mike Acosta (Edgar Ramirez) to search for gold in Indonesia and ends up facing off against Wall Street bankers and corrupt politicians.

In Los Angeles in 2008, screenwriter/producer partners Patrick Massett and John Zinman came across an article about the Bre-X gold scandal of the 1990s, in which Canadian company Bre-X Minerals reported the discovery of a huge gold deposit in Indonesia, courtesy of a mining entrepreneur who'd teamed up with a geologist.

Bre-X and its Busang project - at the time said to be the largest gold discovery ever made - has gone down in history as one of mining's biggest cases of fraud. You can read more about the scandal here.

The script, loosely based on Bre-X, was written in 2009, but financing delayed production until 2015. The film was shot over 55 days in Thailand, Reno and New York.

"This is an adventure film, this is a drama, this is a mystery. It has twists and turns," producer Teddy Schwarzman said.

"Ultimately it's a very personal journey about what it takes in this day and age to achieve the American dream and the lengths you will go to in order to get it."

Bruce Greenwood plays South African mining magnate Mark Hancock in Gold.

"Being Canadian, and Bre-X being a Canadian company, I was all over that story," he said.

"And all this time, having known that it was a fantastic story, and then finding out it was being made, I thought I would just love to be part of it."

Gold hits Australian cinemas on February 2. Thanks to Studiocanal Australia, MNN will have passes to the movie to give away next week.

You can watch the trailer here.