Lights! Scammer! Action!

Disgraced financier and jailbird Bernard L. Madoff is about to get the big-screen treatment. The scam artist will be the subject of a film, “Madoff: Made Off with America,” a project that has been in the works for just over a month. Edmund Druilhet, chief executive of Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based DragonLion Media LLC, is both the writer and executive producer of the movie. “Madoff” will be cast as a biopic following the schemer from childhood to the present, filming in Aspen, Colo., Dubai, United Arab Emirates, London and New York. Mr. Druilhet said that he wants to capture the scammed victims' perspectives in the film and that he has had the opportunity to meet with some of the investors in Aspen and Palm Beach, Fla. “It was hard to get people to talk at first,” he said in an interview. “Palm Beach is the kind of place where you just can't talk.” Once the victims did open up, they said that Mr. Madoff told them that if they wanted to withdraw their funds, they were free to do so — but they would have to pull completely out of the sham investments and would be permitted to do so only once, Mr. Druilhet said. Although the producer said that he is working with some A-list stars, he is also considering working with lesser-known actors in order to get the story out in a timely manner. “The problem I don't want to encounter is shooting a timely film and having a major [Screen Actors Guild] actor hold me hostage,” Mr. Druilhet said. “It's not the actors but the story that's important.” Early footage features features an angry investor punching Mr. Madoff in the face. Sorry, it's a dream sequence. Mr. Druilhet said he plans to distribute proceeds of the film to charities based in Aspen, New York and Palm Beach — the locales, he said, that were hardest-hit by the scam. In tandem with the movie, he is also working on a documentary about the massive fraud called “Satan of Wall Street,” which he would like to show at the Cannes Film Festival.