After allegedly spending millions of Netflix’s money on himself, 47 Ronin director Carl Erik Rinsch has been charged with fraud.
Carl Erik Rinsch made his feature directorial debut with 47 Ronin. The historical fantasy action film starring Keanu Reeves was eviscerated by critics and declared a box office bomb. Despite that failure, Netflix still agreed to fund Rinch’s ambitious sci-fi series, but instead, he allegedly spent the money on cryptocurrency and Rolls-Royces and paid for his divorce. Now, he could be facing the consequences as the Justice Department has charged Rinsch with defrauding Netflix out of $11 million.
Rinsch was arrested today and, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, has been charged with “one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.” If convicted of all counts, Rinsch could serve a maximum of 90 years in prison if the sentences are to be served consecutively.
In a statement, Matthew Podolsky, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, “[Rinsch] orchestrated a scheme to steal millions by soliciting a large investment from a video streaming service, claiming that money would be used to finance a television show that he was creating. But that was fiction. Rinsch instead allegedly used the funds on personal expenses and investments, including highly speculative options and cryptocurrency trading.“
The series, originally titled White Horse and later renamed Conquest, involved a scientist who created a humanlike species that rebelled against its creators. Netflix spent $55 million on the series, but Rinsch requested an additional $11 million. That money was quickly transferred into Rinsch’s personal accounts, and the director went on a spending spree. The series was never finished, and Netflix ultimately cancelled the project, with a spokesperson saying, “After a lot of time and effort, it became clear that Mr. Rinsch was never going to complete the project he agreed to make, and so we wrote the project off.” That could have been the end of it, but Rinsch actually sued Netflix for more than $14 million, which he claimed he was contractually obligated to. The director also apparently stated that he had discovered how to map “the coronavirus signal emanating from within the earth” and could predict lightning strikes. Yep.
