He Stole Millions... From Netflix - The Carl Rinsch Story
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Who is Carl Rinsch and what led to his Netflix project?
So this guy basically steals millions of dollars from Netflix. Now the guy's name is Carl and Carl's around 35 when this story starts and he's living in Los Angeles. And Carl works in entertainment, mostly directing commercials for big brands like Mercedes and Heineken and stuff like that.
Which is great for him, but here's the thing. What he really wants is to direct big budget TV shows and movies. And one day, he gets the chance to do just that.
Because Universal Studios hires him to direct an action movie called 47 Ronin. And 47 Ronin isn't some small indie film. This is going to have a budget of over 170 million dollars. And it's going to star Keanu Reeves. And for Carl, this is everything. It's his first real chance at Hollywood. I mean, he can't mess this up. And so he gets to work and production begins. But almost immediately, things start to fall apart. Partly because Carl insists that each scene of the movie should be shot twice. Once in English, and the other in Japanese. Because most of the actors in the movie are Japanese natives. The problem with this is that this screws up the production. The movie now costs twice as much to shoot. It also complicates the whole movie editing process.
And so of course the producers and financiers of the movie are not happy about this. And so Carl is eventually removed from the editing process altogether. And if things couldn't get worse for him, once 47 Ronin finally comes out, it is a disaster. Not only does the movie bomb, but it gets destroyed by critics earning a whopping 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. So his big movie flops. And just like that, Carl's dream of being a big Hollywood director collapses. So what does he do? Well, he goes back to directing commercials and making money that way. But he isn't about to give up on Hollywood just yet. He's convinced that all he needs is one more shot. So pretty quickly, he starts working on a new project with this woman, Gabriella.
Gabriella is actually Carl's wife. So they start working on a sci-fi series called White Horse. And it's got humanoids and robots in it and stuff like that. So it sounds pretty cool. And Carl actually finances it himself. And eventually, they start shooting it. And so, this ends up being a great little passion project for him. Like, it's fun, and it keeps him busy. But, after a while, he's able to make six short episodes, each around four to ten minutes long. Here's actually a still frame of one of them, so you can see that it's like a sci-fi thing. But then, over time, Carl decides that Whitehorse isn't just going to be a passion project, it's going to be his big comeback. So he takes those short episodes and he uses them to pitch the show to every major streaming platform that he can think of.
He apparently wants one of these places to finance it so that he can make it into a full-length, long-form series. And one of the places he pitches the show is Netflix. Now, I don't know what the executives at Netflix actually look like, but I assume they look like this. So the Netflix execs, they hear this pitch and they actually like it. And they agree to fund Whitehorse. And they send over some initial funding of millions of dollars. And in 2018, Carl and his team, they begin shooting in Brazil and Uruguay and Hungary and some other places. But now here's where it all starts to fall apart. Because, as it turns out, being a creator, director, and producer of a big budget TV series is actually a really stressful job.
And over time, this stress really gets to Carl. And he starts abusing his ADHD medication, which can apparently cause mania.
What challenges did Carl face while directing 47 Ronin?
And soon enough, people on set start noticing changes in his behavior. Like he's constantly shouting and cursing at people and lashing out at all the crew members. And over time, he becomes completely erratic. Like he even starts accusing Gabriela, his own wife, of plotting to have him assassinated. In fact, he gets so crazy that eventually Gabriella, some of Carl's family members, and other crew members all get together and they stage an intervention, which apparently ends up not working at all.
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