Warner Bros. Developing Movie About the Enron Scandal - Conspiracy of Fools

February 14, 2008
Source: Variety
by Alex Billington

Warner Brothers is working on three high profile based-on-true-story movies: one about outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, another about poisoned ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, and finally one about the Enron scandal from 2001. Conspiracy of Fools is the movie that tells the story of the Enron scandal and it was just announced today that Robert Schwentke has been attached to direct. Leonardo DiCaprio is producing and possibly starring as well. Let's hope Warner Brothers knows how to pull off a quality drama based on real life occurrences, because all three of these sound fairly interesting.

Conspiracy of Fools is based on a book by Kurt Eichenwald of the same name. Amazon.com describes the concept: Conspiracy of Fools tells the Enron tale with a cinematic narrative style, relying almost exclusively on scene and dialogue to bring his account to vivid life. We see how federal regulators opened the doors for the Enron fraud early on when they let the company loosen up its accounting rules and essentially cook its books. We read how Enron bullied Wall Street firms into issuing favorable reports about its share price by threatening to take away lucrative banking fees. Eichenwald also reveals how Enron manipulated electricity prices during the California energy crisis of 2000.

The script for the adaptation was written by Sheldon Turner, who wrote The Longest Yard and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning previously. His adaptation of the book revolves around a tax attorney who joins the Houston-based energy company and peels back the layers of greed and fraudulent accounting to expose a financial scheme. DiCaprio was involved with this from the start, but changes in his schedule may not allow him to act in the film, only produce, but casting details aren't final yet. Director Robert Schwentke previously worked on Flightplan, The Family Jewels, and has The Time Traveler's Wife coming up.

In the last year it seems Leonardo DiCaprio has turned into a producer more than an actor. Take, for example, his documentary The 11th Hour. But alas, he does have roles in Revolutionary Road and Body of Lies coming up. Case in point, since I never saw The 11th Hour, I can't say whether DiCaprio operating as producer brings anything special to a movie or not. For the sake of hoping this turns out great, I hope he does do a good job as producer. So far the project seems to be in good hands and I'll it this my stamp of approval.

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