Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2015 as a news item. The film, The Wizard of Lies, premiered on HBO in May 2017, and Madoff died in prison in April 2021, so the sentence status given is out of date. The miniseries mentioned was broadcast on ABC in 2016.
HBO Films is going to test viewers’ appetite for Wall Street’s “bad boys”. After the success of The Wolf of Wall Street, which brought the life and “stock market adventures” of Jordan Belfort to the big screen, HBO will now try to repeat that success with the life of Bernard Madoff, the man behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in history (a $65 billion fraud).
According to Deadline, Madoff will be played by Robert De Niro, and Michelle Pfeiffer will play his wife, Ruth Madoff. The film will be directed by Barry Levinson.
It will be based on the book The Wizard of Lies by Diana B. Henriques.
Bernie Madoff is currently serving the sixth year of his 150-year sentence.
As we can see, Wall Street men and white- and blue-collar criminals are very much in fashion in the film industry. New series about hedge funds are expected in the United States, as well as a miniseries about Madoff himself.
It’s hard to predict when this film will be released, given that it has been in the works since 2011 and only now has the script been finished and the roles (supposedly) cast. It will certainly be an interesting film.
See also: Bernard Madoff: nobody can succeed on Wall Street without cheating
Featured image: Olivier Strecker, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
