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      Zach Avery Charged With Running Million Dollar Ponzi Scheme

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      Zach Avery convinced clients, to the tune of $227 million, that he had a deal with HBO and Netflix that would help net them speedy 35 percent returns, the S.E.C. said.The 2017 film “Bitter Harvest” would not, by many definitions, be considered a success.“It’s a bad sign when even the prayers in this movie are crappy,” observed one reviewer, who contributed to the film’s 15 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes.It pulled in less than $600,000 in the United States. But that did not mean it did not still have moneymaking potential abroad. All investors needed to do was help buy the rights to distribute it and a number of other films in Latin America, Africa and New Zealand. Major distribution deals with HBO and Netflix were on the cusp of being formalized, they were told. Once those fell into place, the investors would get returns of at least 35 percent.That is the essence of what the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are calling a Ponzi scheme run by Zachary J. Horwitz, a not particularly famous actor with a rather extravagant home. Mr. Horwitz, who went by the stage name Zach Avery, was arrested on Tuesday on wire fraud charges. He is accused of defrauding investors of at least $227 million and fabricating his company’s business relationship with HBO and Netflix.“We allege that Horwitz promised extremely high returns and made them seem plausible by invoking the names of two well-known entertainment companies and fabricating documents,” Michele Wein Layne, director of the S.E.C.’s Los Angeles regional office, said in a news release on Tuesday.Prosecutors said that correspondence Mr. Horwitz had forwarded to clients, which featured HBO and Netflix email addresses, was as fictitious as the subject matter of his most recent film, the horror movie “The Devil Below” (Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 0 percent). Mr. Horwitz did not star in any of the 50 or so films he promised could make investors millions, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.Mr. Horwitz was in jail on Wednesday, Mr. Mrozek said. Attempts to reach other employees of One in a Million Productions, whose website features the tag line “When Odds Are One in a Million. Be That One,” were unsuccessful. (Later Wednesday afternoon, the site had been taken down.)Mr. Horwitz’s lawyer, Anthony Pacheco, did not respond to a request for comment.The Ponzi scheme began to unravel when an investor wanted money refunded in 2019 and could not get it, Mr. Mrozek said.For several years, 1inMM — as the company styles its name — found ways to pay investors, according to the S.E.C. Court documents do not list all of the films investors thought they had helped buy rights to, but the complaint features an image from 1inMM’s “library”; the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme movie “The Kickboxer” and the 2013 romantic comedy “The Spectacular Now” are included.The way that money can be made in the movie distribution world is to say, “I’ll give you $100,000 for Latin America rights,” for example, Mr. Mrozek said, adding, “I go to HBO or whomever and say, ‘Give me $200,000 to show the movie.’”It’s possible that the company did succeed in buying international distribution rights to a handful of films or even that it started with good intentions, Mr. Mrozek said. But what it did not have was the relationship with HBO and Netflix that Mr. Horwitz told investors it did. It was that relationship that he said essentially guaranteed them returns of 35 percent or more within six months or a year.“I believed that if HBO was involved, my investment was safe,” one investor told the S.E.C.At first, Mr. Horwitz was able to follow through on his promises. In typical Ponzi scheme fashion, earlier investors got money from newer investors, Mr. Mrozek said. His clients could go on believing that investing in viewings of “The Kickboxer” in New Zealand and Latin America was smart.But at some point, there wasn’t enough money flowing in to maintain the illusion — even with the help of the Johnny Walker Blue Label scotch Mr. Horwitz sent to principals, according to F.B.I. agent John Verrastro, who outlined the scheme in a complaint. Mr. Horwitz was also inappropriately using investor funds on a $5.7 million home and $700,000 in fees for a celebrity interior designer, according to the S.E.C.Since December 2019, 1inMM has defaulted on more than 160 payments, according to court documents. One investor in Chicago, who was owed more than $160 million in principal and $59 million in profits, wanted his returns and could not get them, Mr. Mrozek said. That investor contacted the authorities. More

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      Hollywood Actor Charged With Running Film-Distribution Ponzi Scheme

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      Zach Avery convinced clients, to the tune of $227 million, that he had a deal with HBO and Netflix that would help net them speedy 35 percent returns, the S.E.C. said.The 2017 film “Bitter Harvest” would not, by many definitions, be considered a success.“It’s a bad sign when even the prayers in this movie are crappy,” observed one reviewer, who contributed to the film’s 15 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes.It pulled in less than $600,000 in the United States. But that did not mean it did not still have moneymaking potential abroad. All investors needed to do was help buy the rights to distribute it and a number of other films in Latin America, Africa and New Zealand. Major distribution deals with HBO and Netflix were on the cusp of being formalized, they were told. Once those fell into place, the investors would get returns of at least 35 percent.That is the essence of what the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are calling a Ponzi scheme run by Zachary J. Horwitz, a not particularly famous actor with a rather extravagant home. Mr. Horwitz, who went by the stage name Zach Avery, was arrested on Tuesday on wire fraud charges. He is accused of defrauding investors of at least $227 million and fabricating his company’s business relationship with HBO and Netflix.“We allege that Horwitz promised extremely high returns and made them seem plausible by invoking the names of two well-known entertainment companies and fabricating documents,” Michele Wein Layne, director of the S.E.C.’s Los Angeles regional office, said in a news release on Tuesday.Prosecutors said that correspondence Mr. Horwitz had forwarded to clients, which featured HBO and Netflix email addresses, was as fictitious as the subject matter of his most recent film, the horror movie “The Devil Below” (Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 0 percent). Mr. Horwitz did not star in any of the 50 or so films he promised could make investors millions, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.Mr. Horwitz was in jail on Wednesday, Mr. Mrozek said. Attempts to reach other employees of One in a Million Productions, whose website features the tag line “When Odds Are One in a Million. Be That One,” were unsuccessful. (Later Wednesday afternoon, the site had been taken down.)Mr. Horwitz’s lawyer, Anthony Pacheco, did not respond to a request for comment.The Ponzi scheme began to unravel when an investor wanted money refunded in 2019 and could not get it, Mr. Mrozek said.For several years, 1inMM — as the company styles its name — found ways to pay investors, according to the S.E.C. Court documents do not list all of the films investors thought they had helped buy rights to, but the complaint features an image from 1inMM’s “library”; the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme movie “The Kickboxer” and the 2013 romantic comedy “The Spectacular Now” are included.The way that money can be made in the movie distribution world is to say, “I’ll give you $100,000 for Latin America rights,” for example, Mr. Mrozek said, adding, “I go to HBO or whomever and say, ‘Give me $200,000 to show the movie.’”It’s possible that the company did succeed in buying international distribution rights to a handful of films or even that it started with good intentions, Mr. Mrozek said. But what it did not have was the relationship with HBO and Netflix that Mr. Horwitz told investors it did. It was that relationship that he said essentially guaranteed them returns of 35 percent or more within six months or a year.“I believed that if HBO was involved, my investment was safe,” one investor told the S.E.C.At first, Mr. Horwitz was able to follow through on his promises. In typical Ponzi scheme fashion, earlier investors got money from newer investors, Mr. Mrozek said. His clients could go on believing that investing in viewings of “The Kickboxer” in New Zealand and Latin America was smart.But at some point, there wasn’t enough money flowing in to maintain the illusion — even with the help of the Johnny Walker Blue Label scotch Mr. Horwitz sent to principals, according to F.B.I. agent John Verrastro, who outlined the scheme in a complaint. Mr. Horwitz was also inappropriately using investor funds on a $5.7 million home and $700,000 in fees for a celebrity interior designer, according to the S.E.C.Since December 2019, 1inMM has defaulted on more than 160 payments, according to court documents. One investor in Chicago, who was owed more than $160 million in principal and $59 million in profits, wanted his returns and could not get them, Mr. Mrozek said. That investor contacted the authorities. More

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      Daniel Craig Allegedly Set to Earn Over $100 Million for Two 'Knives Out' Sequels

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      Lionsgate

      The ‘No Time to Die’ actor is expected to receive a huge earning from his deal with Netflix after being signed on for two more installments with director Rian Johnson.

      Apr 8, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Daniel Craig is reportedly set to cash in more than $100 million (£72 million) after signing on for two “Knives Out” sequels.

      It was reported earlier this week (beg06Apr21) that Craig will be reprising his role as quirky detective Benoit Blanc for two follow-up films to the 2019 hit, with Rian Johnson on board to return as writer/director.

      And while sources said at the time that the deal was worth over $400 million (£290 million), insiders told The Hollywood Reporter that Netflix paid a staggering $429 million (£311 million) to be able to exclusively stream both movies.

      The new report also stated how the money will be divided – with Daniel, Rian, and his producing partner Ram earning more than $100 million each for the next two films.

        See also…

      Rian is also said to have been given full creative control over the movies.

      “Yes, it’s overpaying, but Netflix is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers,” an insider told the outlet. “It takes a proven theatrical commodity off the board and puts it in their pocket. And it’s another way they re-educate audiences to think of streaming and their company above a studio.”

      The original “Knives Out” was made for $40 million (£29 million) and went on to earn over $311 million (£225.6 million) at the international box office.

      The plot is still kept under wrap, but Daniel Craig won’t reunite with his onscreen family in the upcoming “Knives Out 2”.

      “The Thromby family is in family counseling and the therapist suggested they stay away from Benoit Blanc in the future,” recently tweeted Jamie Lee Curtis who starred in the first one.

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      'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Photos Reveal 'Newest Avenger' Wielding Captain America's Shield

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      Marvel Studios

      The new behind-the-scenes pictures capture a New York City bus stop which is plastered with a poster of the Statue of Liberty carrying Captain America’s shield.

      Apr 7, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      A new behind-the-scenes photo “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has revealed there’s a new Avenger in town. The fan-taken images show the so-called “Newest (and tallest) Avenger” wielding Captain America’s shield.

      On Monday, April 5, Houston Coley, host of the defunct film podcast “Blockbusted”, shared on his Twitter page two pictures that captured a New York City bus stop plastered with a poster of the Statue of Liberty carrying Cap’s shield. The post also includes the hashtag #NYLibertyAvenger.

      ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ behind-the-scenes photos reveals the ‘Newest Avenger’ in town.

      According to @spideysnews that reposted the snaps, the photos were taken from the set of the “Spider-Man: Far From Home” sequel. Murphy’s Multiverse additionally reports the prop will be featured in the backdrop of “a key scene.”

        See also…

      It’s unclear why the Statue of Liberty is getting a rebranding as the new Avenger, but it’s possible that the Statue of Liberty itself will appear in the upcoming movie.

      Little is known about the plot details of “No Way Home” as everything has been kept under tight wraps, but it has been widely rumored to introduce a multiverse storyline that will set up the storyline for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”. The multiverse storyline is also believed to allow the return of previous Spider-Men, portrayed by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

      However, Tom Holland, who reprises his role as Peter Parker a.k.a. the webslinger, remained coy when asked about the possibilities of Maguire and Garfield’s cameo in the movie. “Beats me, I don’t know. If they are, they haven’t told me yet…,” he said in an interview for Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast back in February. “That would be something that Marvel would do. I watch the film and be like ‘So that’s who that tennis ball was!’ ”

      Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange are additionally said to make appearance in “No Way Home”. Meanwhile, the confirmed cast so far includes returning actors Zendaya Coleman, Jacob Batalon and Marisa Tomei. Jon Watts is back at the helm of the superhero film, which is slated for a December 17, 2021 release in the United States.

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      From a South African Slur to a Scathing Drama About Toxic Masculinity

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      The new film “Moffie” examines the brainwashing of a generation of white men in the twilight of the apartheid regime.“Mo-FFIES!” chant the soldiers, precisely lined up under a baking sun, as a screaming sergeant reviles two men reported to be lovers. “Mo-ffies! Mo-ffies! Mo-ffies!”The word is a homophobic slur in Afrikaans, and the scene comes about 30 minutes into Oliver Hermanus’s new film, “Moffie.” It depicts South Africa in the early 1980s, when the country’s white government saw threats from the communists at the border, terrorists at home and the anti-apartheid movement worldwide. Every white man over 16 had to do two years of military service, and “Moffie” suggests the story of a generation through the shy recruit Nicholas van der Swart (Kai Luke Brummer). He endures the brutal basic training designed to brainwash the young men into a paranoid, aggressive defense of the apartheid regime, and is sent to fight on the border, while quietly experiencing an awakening of sexual identity in the worst possible context.“A scarringly brilliant anatomy of white South African masculinity,” Guy Lodge wrote in Variety upon the film’s premiere at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. It was equally well reviewed in South Africa before its distribution was derailed by the pandemic. The drama is reaching American theaters and video on demand on April 9.Telling a story set in the apartheid era from a white point of view was not an obvious choice for the Cape Town-born Hermanus, 37, who is mixed race (known as “colored” in South Africa), and did not join the army.“I did wonder whether my first film set in the apartheid era could really be about white South African men as victims of apartheid,” Hermanus said in an interview in London, where he is about to begin filming an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru,” written by Kazuo Ishiguro. “It’s not quite doing Winnie or Nelson Mandela!”Kai Luke Brummer plays a South African conscript uncertain of his sexuality.IFC FilmsIt was the title that intrigued the South African-born producer Eric Abraham (“Ida”), when he chanced upon the novel “Moffie” by André Carl van der Merwe a few years ago in London. “Anyone who has grown up in South Africa knows the power of that word to hurt,” he said in an interview. “It was the most demeaning, derogatory term you could come up with, used by white people to intimidate and de-select those who they feared infecting their ideology.”Abraham and his fellow producer Jack Sidey approached Hermanus, whose 2011 film, “Beauty,” they admired. He was initially skeptical. “In South Africa, you always arrive with a racial perspective, and that’s how I first thought about ‘Moffie,’” he said. “But something about it gripped me, and I realized that it is really about shame and indoctrination.”The word, he added, is equally vicious for a straight or gay man, “because it identifies you as an outsider, a man who does not embody the qualities of the strong hypermasculine dominator.”After working with two writers, Hermanus and Sidey eventually wrote the script together, moving away from the novel’s more personal love story. “I was more interested in the hurt and indoctrination than the protagonist’s catharsis,” Hermanus said. “I didn’t want to make another gay-centric relationship drama set in the army. I wanted it to be a serious portrait of this generation.”Hermanus obliquely and subtly evokes Nicholas’s shifting emotions, as the soldier gradually forms a silent attachment to a fellow conscript, Dylan Stassen (Ryan de Villiers). The price of expressing such feelings is made clear in that early scene when the two lovers, bloodied and trembling, are taunted and humiliated. Later, we learn they have been sent to the fearsome Ward 22, where they are the subject of brutal experimental treatments intended to cure homosexuals, drug addicts and others deemed to be deviant.“It was very important to both Oliver and me that Nicholas wasn’t certain of his sexuality,” Brummer said in a video interview from Cape Town. “His focus is survival, finding out how to fit in, and in finding Dylan something in him ignites, and his understanding of the world shifts.”The deep social repression of sexuality and of otherness is evoked midway through the film in a brightly colored, sun-dappled flashback to a childhood experience of humiliation, which Hermanus drew from his own memories. It is shot in a single take, one of several unpredictable cinematic decisions that inflect the movie. “We set a lot of rules beforehand about our choices, but sometimes you just surrender to what is there,” said Jamie D. Ramsay, the director of photography, who had worked with Hermanus on two previous films. “Oliver is brave and will commit and say, ‘OK that’s the shot.’”The director was initially skeptical of a film about apartheid told from a white perspective. “In South Africa, you always arrive with a racial perspective, and that’s how I first thought about ‘Moffie,’” he said.Alexander Coggin for The New York TimesHermanus, who was 11 when apartheid ended, said that he had always been obsessed with films, shooting his first movie — “a horror movie, terrible, starring my cousin” — at 13. After earning a degree in film and media studies from the University of Cape Town, he worked at a film production company (“as a slave”) eventually becoming a newspaper photographer. All the time, he said, “I wanted to be a filmmaker, and was living through a depression as a colored South African who just didn’t know how to make that happen.”A chance meeting with the director Roland Emmerich and his cinematographer, Ueli Steiger, in a Cape Town restaurant led to a friendship that changed everything. “One day Roland said to me, if you can get in to film school, I’ll give you a scholarship,” Hermanus recounted. “Somehow they saw something in me; it’s a perfect example of what it means to invest in people.”Hermanus went to the London Film School for three years, and made the full-length “Shirley Adams” as his graduation movie. “You are supposed to make a short film, but I wore them out,” Hermanus said. The film’s critical success in South Africa and abroad led to the invitation of a residency in Cannes, where he began to work on “Beauty,” a study of a gay obsession in a tight Afrikaans community.Like Hermanus’s other films, “Moffie” is the product of what he describes as “forensic” preparation. He researched the era, helped by Ramsay, who had collected images of the South African border war in the ’70s and ’80s before he was involved with the movie. And the director met regularly with the actors for months, working out their back stories, then sent them to a boot camp for a week.“Oliver created an environment in which anything was possible because we understood our characters and that world,” Hilton Pelser, who plays the terrifying Sergeant Brand, said in a video interview. “I came to understand what Brand is trying to do; in a very dark, very violent way, he is trying to save their lives.”The movie, Hermanus said, is a reflection of the crumbling of apartheid, the moment when the minority government cranked up fear and distrust because it was losing its grip. There are very few Black figures in the movie, and all are the brief subject of violence or contempt. “I wanted the film to be from the perspective of white South Africa,” Hermanus said, “and that was its reality.”Despite that perspective, Hermanus feels “Moffie” resonates in broader ways. “I see it as a portrait of the factory, how men were being made in the service of an ideology,” he said. “That relates to their treatment of women, their treatment of other races, how they potentially become the men we identify as problematic today.”Apartheid, he added, “isn’t one face. It’s a bit like World War II — there are lots of different films you could make. ‘Moffie’ is about just one facet of that history: the beginning of the end.” More

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      Naomi Watts to Star in Remake of Austrian Horror 'Goodnight Mommy'

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      Instagram

      ‘Take Me To The River’ director Matt Sobel, who will shoot the Amazon Studios project, claims that the re-imagining of the 2014 film will put visceral sensations front and center.

      Apr 7, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Actress Naomi Watts is set to scare in an English-language remake of cult Austrian horror film “Goodnight Mommy”.

      “Take Me To The River (2016)” director Matt Sobel will shoot the Amazon Studios project, which revolves around twin brothers who are sent to stay with their mother, only to suspect the woman all bandaged up is an imposter.

      The psychological thriller will be executive produced by Watts, alongside the original movie’s filmmakers Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, reports Variety.

      In a statement, Sobel said, “My favorite films are those that invite the audience to step inside their protagonist’s journey.”

        See also…

      “In our re-imagining of ‘Goodnight Mommy’, fear of abandonment – and the dreadful realization that those close to us may not be who they seem – create an immersive nightmare, with visceral sensations front and center.”

      “I can’t wait to create this heart-stopping story with Amazon and the peerless Naomi Watts.”

      The 2014 release of “Goodnight Mommy”, starring Susanne Wuest as Mother and Elias Schwarz and Lukas Schwarz as her twin sons, was selected as Austria’s submission for the Oscars, but failed to land a nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

      Kyle Warren writes the script with David Kaplan, Joshua Astrachan, Valery Guibal and Nicolas Brigaud-Robert producing. Joining Watts, the original film’s directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz are tapped to serve as executive producers.

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      Ang Lee Announced as 2021 BAFTA Fellowship Recipient

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      WENN

      The ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ is set to be celebrated at the upcoming BAFTA Film Awards as a special honoree, following in the footsteps of Charlie Chaplin and Steven Spielberg.

      Apr 7, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Director Ang Lee is to be honoured with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Fellowship at the 74th EE BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday 11 April (21).

      The Tawianese filmmaker will receive BAFTA’s highest accolade, which is typically reserved for an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, games or television.

      Lee has been responsible for several ground-breaking blockbusters including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Life of Pi”. He has won four BAFTAs including Best Director for “Brokeback Mountain”, Best Film for “Sense and Sensibility”, and both of those awards for “Crouching Tiger”.

        See also…

      Previous recipients of the BAFTA Fellowship include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, and Stanley Kubrick. Kathleen Kennedy received the prize at last year’s awards.

      “Ang Lee is a master of his craft. He is an incredibly versatile, daring and exceptional filmmaker who effortlessly moves between genres,” said BAFTA Film Chair Marc Samuelson in a statement. “His films have been truly ground-breaking both in terms of their technical expertise and for the subject matters he tackles. His pioneering work in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi and so many other titles not only showcase his technical ability and deep understanding of the filmmaking process, but also his ability to infuse every story – no matter how epic or simple – with humanizing characters we can all relate to on an emotional level through his exceptional work. We are thrilled to present him with BAFTA’s highest honour.”

      The triple Oscar winner added, “England has been particularly good to me in my career, especially with Sense and Sensibility, which was like a second film school for me. It’s a tremendous honour to receive the BAFTA Academy Fellowship and be counted among such brilliant filmmakers.”

      The EE BAFTA Film Awards will be celebrated across the weekend of 10 and 11 April and broadcast virtually from London’s Royal Albert Hall on the BBC.

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