ENRON SCANDAL THE MOVIE

FX and Artisan Television are in development on a made-for-television movie about the Enron scandal of which award-winning producer Lowell Bergman will serve as a consultant, announced FX President of Entertainment Kevin Reilly and Artisan Pictures CEO Robert Cooper. In addition, the companies anticipate making other deals for an inside look at Enron. The movie may be two or four hours in length pending development.
“We are committed to making a credible and compelling movie out of this pretty incredible and complex story,” said Kevin Reilly President of Entertainment at FX. “Lowell Bergman has made his mark getting to the bottom of complicated stories and that’s why we are in the best possible hands as we strive to get the facts straight and distill the issues. However, the dramatic guts of the story – cronyism, dishonesty, ambition and capitalism gone awry – are taking shape with each passing day.”
Bob Cooper, who will be Executive Producer of the project, has produced numerous acclaimed feature and made for television films. As President of HBO Pictures, Cooper oversaw and approved the production of some of the best ever made for television movies including “Barbarians at the Gate,” “And the Band Played On” and “The Josephine Baker Story.” Recently, Cooper Executive Produced “Sins of the Father” for FX and Artisan Television, which garnered extensive critical acclaim and outstanding ratings.
“We want to create a story that echoes powerful ideas and images in the same vein as such seminal productions as “Barbarians At the Gate,” “And The Band Played On” and All The President’s Men,” said Cooper. “Having the esteemed journalist Lowell Bergman involved in this project will be invaluable in helping us tell this story and cast a mirror on our world and ourselves.”
Lowell Bergman graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara and was one of the founding members of the Center for Investigative Reporting. He spent 16 years as a producer with CBS’s 60 Minutes, where he was honored with several Emmys and a Peabody Award. More recently he has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times and served as both producer and correspondent for numerous PBS Frontline documentaries. The story of his investigation of the tobacco industry for 60 Minutes was chronicled in the feature film The Insider.
“I am very excited to be involved with Bob Cooper to tell a very complex and important story and make it accessible to the general public,” added Bergman. “This is a story of men versus women and how it was the women who stood up to the electric cowboys of Houston.”
FX’s most recent original movie, the critically acclaimed “Sins of the Father” (1/6/02), starred Tom Sizemore, Richard Jenkins, and Ving Rhames. It was based on the relationship between Bobby Frank Cherry and his son Tom Cherry, and the role Tom played in helping the government bring an indictment against his father. The elder Cherry was indicted for his role in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church—an event that resulted in the death of four girls and changed the course of the Civil Rights movement.
FX and Artisan Television are currently in pre-production on a film about Bobby Kennedy titled, “RFK,” which will be directed by Emmy Award nominated Robert Dornhelm.
FX’s next original movie “Big Shot: Confessions of a Campus Bookie,” from Fox Television Studios, stars David Krumholtz in the lead role and is directed by Ernest Dickerson. “Big Shot” is the true story of Benny Silman, whose flirtation with sports gambling while a student at Arizona State University spiraled out of control and was the catalyst for one of the most significant sports bribery conspiracies in the history of college athletics.
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