$AFOM- SCARAMUCCI INVESTED IN AFOM'S UPCOMING MOVI
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Have You Heard About Anthony Scaramucci’s Anti-Bullying Musical?
Scaramucci was on the Atlanta, Georgia set of the film shortly before being hired by the White House.
by JULIE MILLER
AUGUST 1, 2017 11:08 AM
By Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
Forty-eight hours before Anthony Scaramucci was named White House communications director, the swaggering Wall Street figure-turned-presidential mouthpiece was in Atlanta, Georgia, visiting the set of a young-adult film he helped finance: an anti-bullying musical.
“It is about five girls who are kind of misfits,” director Martin Guigui told Vanity Fair by phone on Monday about the high school-set project Crazy for the Boys, which is aiming for a spring/summer 2018 release. “The girls are all very different and they form a band to stand up against bullying. It’s a very heartwarming story—it’s good old-fashioned family entertainment. The dancing, the singing. . . . I shot it thinking of the old-school classic musicals like Bye Bye Birdie and Grease.”
Guigui—who directed Charlie Sheen in the drama 9/11 premiering this fall, and Dennis Quaid in a 2011 horror film called Beneath the Darkness—said that the film stars five women of the Disney/Nickelodeon ilk, including Ana Golja, Michelle DeFraites, Carlye Tamaren, Amelia DeMilo, and Zonta. Saturday Night Live veteran Cheri Oteri, the most famous of the film’s cast members, co-stars as the school principal, who calls upon the girls to, according to press materials for the film, “solve the rampant bullying and cyber bullying at the school.”
When Vanity Fair mentioned the importance of the film’s message, especially considering the bullying social-media tactics of President Trump, Guigui declined to comment.
Scaramucci—who reportedly gave $100,000 to the production of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in exchange for product placement and a cameo—did not have much contact with Guigui during filming, which wrapped on Monday. On his financial disclosure form, which was made public last week, Scaramucci described his investment in the film to be between $250,001 and $500,000.
The film was written by Brian Lukow, who worked as a senior vice president of investments at Lehman Brothers between 1982 to 1995 before turning his attention to entertainment and founding the boy band Dream Street. Scaramucci also worked in the investment management division of Lehman Brothers—as a managing director—but not until 2003, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“I heard he was an investor in the picture,” Guigui explained. “He came to the set a couple weeks ago. We met him. He watched footage. He loved what he saw. We all went to dinner that evening with the producers and chatted about life in general and movies. Then he left the next day. I was thankful because on this project he is an angel investor, somebody who believed in the project . . . every film is such a mountain to make, especially in independent filmmaking . . . it’s definitely a miracle that this film was made.”
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“He was here visiting just 48 hours prior to the announcement. Literally 48 hours prior. When he was here, he was an investor in the project and we knew him as a financier from New York. Then a couple days later it circulated around the set . . . everybody found out about [his new position in the White House]. As someone said on set, ‘You can’t make this stuff up.’”
Guigui said that Scaramucci observed several scenes shot in a Georgia high school.
“He mostly watched classroom scenes that day and some dancing sequences,” Guigui said, adding that Scaramucci offered no creative feedback. He also did not request a cameo.
“Before he left, he said, ‘You’re doing a great job. Thank you,’” said Guigui. “I took that as a compliment . . . I did find him to be incredibly intelligent and respectful person—that is how he was with us.”
On Monday, Scaramucci was abruptly fired from the White House. Among Scaramucci’s most notable moments in his short term as communications director: making a profane on-the-record call to The New Yorker, during which he called Priebus a “paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac.”
As for what Guigui thinks resonated with Scaramucci about his anti-bullying musical, the director said, “I wish I knew.”
Scaramucci also has a co-executive producer credit on Barry Levinson’s upcoming Joe Paterno biopic, starring Al Pacino. In a statement to Vanity Fair sent Monday, a representative from HBO clarified that his credit stemmed from “early financing he brought into the project prior to HBO’s involvement.” The rep stated that Scaramucci did not visit the set.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/08/...ng-musical