Federal prosecutors charge filmmaker with stealing $11 million from Netflix over show that never aired
Federal authorities said filmmaker Carl Erik Rinsch was arrested Tuesday over charges he defrauded streaming giant Netflix out of $11 million in connection with a science fiction series he never completed.
Federal authorities said filmmaker Carl Erik Rinsch was arrested Tuesday over charges he defrauded streaming giant Netflix out of $11 million in connection with a science fiction series he never completed.
Prosecutors didn’t name Netflix in the indictment or the news release. But the dispute between Rinsch, 47, and Netflix has been well publicized since The New York Times first reported on the allegations against the filmmaker in a November 2023 article.
In 2018 and 2019, Netflix, which is referred to only as “a subscription video on-demand streaming service” by prosecutors, paid $44 million to Rinsch’s company for the filmmaker’s unproduced show, “White Horse,” according to the indictment.
Though Rinsch is a relatively unknown filmmaker — having helmed only one movie, titled “47 Ronin” — there was a competitive auction for the project, according to the Times. Rinsch’s pitch was for a science-fiction series about artificial humans.
In March 2020, Netflix sent Rinsch’s company an additional $11 million after he claimed the initial amount was “not sufficient” to complete the series, according to the indictment, which was handed up in the Southern District of New York.
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