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EXCLUSIVE: HBO’s movie about Bernie Madoff starring Robert De Niro as the disgraced financier is gaining momentum with the hire of Reservation Road scribe John Burnham Schwartz to write the script. HBO started the process in May when it optioned Diane Henriques’ non-fiction book The Wizard Of Lies: Bernie Madoff And The Death Of Trust, which is recounting the life of the imprisoned swindler and the $65 billion Ponzi scheme he concocted, and began negotiations with De Niro to play the lead. Now the high-profile project is moving to the next stage with ICM-repped Schwartz set to write a script based on Henriques’ book and additional source material I heard HBO is in the process of acquiring.
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i love DeNiro… but as far as appearance as to who resembles Madoff, wouldn’t Brian Cox be a good fit? just thinkin’!
Should be interesting.
or maybe either would be a good choice.
HBO has become Lifetime Movies for Men. Ripped from the headline stories that are always about greed.
Leads are always middle aged or older.
It is a requirement than an actor in the original Godfather film must be cast.
Their scope is hilariously narrow.
DeNiro is not in the original Godfather
yeah he is.. He plays young vito in the godfarther movie
Let’s get real: not even 1/10th of the real story behind Bernie Madoff’s operation has been exposed–and this movie will add nothing to that black hole.
Such a highly complex, labor-intensive, sprawling multinational fraud run for decades, that sophisticated and successful, does not get carried out by one individual.
Period.
There were many, many active and deeply involved partners. Why has no one else been arrested? Prosecuted?
The SEC bent over backwards so as NOT to investigate him, even after they were handed detailed analysis of his fraud.
Bernie Madoff pleads guilty (so no trial, no real probing discloure) and they expect people to just accept it’s over–as if the matter is that simple.
Understimating the public’s intelligence is, sadly, a good bet. And this film project will surely help keep people dumb.
How much more obvious must it be that Madoff was set up to work for others?
Madoff did not even make the most money out of the operation. (The individual who made the most money by far? He ended up suddenly dead at the bottom of his swimming pool and won’t be talking either.) Getting the picture yet?
To keep himself breathing, Madoff goes silently right off to jail. (Not like he couldn’t afford lawyers, folks.)
The most plausible explanation: the operation was being used to fund covert intelligence agency operations.
There is precedent for this; Robert Maxwell, for one, who wasn’t willing to stay quiet and had to be silenced.
A couple of good, interesting points made but your ONLY “plausible” explanation? I agree there is much more than meets the eye here but I don’t think covert intel funding is the only thing that was going on, if that was any part of it at all. Such a deep rabbit hole…
Richard Dreyfus must be pissed. Maybe he can play Bernie’s brother?
DeNiro was great until the early 1980s. He used to be so selective about his roles before then, and he didn’t make those weird scrunchy faces when he acted either.
People should check out “The Last Tycoon.” An understated, lovely performance. I miss that Robert DeNiro a lot. It’s unbearable to watch him now.
Sorry, Dustin Hoffman has to be Madoff ! DeNiro is jaded and the guy just dials it in now. From bad casting.com
John Schwartz is an amazing writer and this is a perfect project for him. Exactly the type of role that De Niro needs to sink his teeth into. Will be a fine return to dramatic narrative worthy of his talent. HBO would be wise to prorgress this toward production. Tribeca would be wise to continue producing elevated projects in this vein.
Brian Cox is a damn fine thespian but I think De Niro has the range to humanize Maddoff ad any good film will try and humanize its lead no matter how vile his actions where. See Hokpkins in Nixon for example.
How about Cox as Strauss-Kahn