Almost every big scandal that attracts widespread attention gets made into either a feature film or documentary, but it looks like the college admissions scandal that blew up headlines in the past couple of years is getting a bit of both. The first trailer for Netflix’s documentary aided by dramatic re-enactments, Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal, has released. Fyre filmmaker Chris Smith is directing the script from Jon Karmen, and Matthew Modine stars as Rick Singer, the man at the center of everything.
Singer was able to convince wealthy clients to purchase expensive fake documents to ensure that their children would be accepted into top colleges and universities. The FBI investigated the crimes and toppled the empire using recorded phone conversations between Singer and his Clients. The film uses archival footage and interviews in addition to the re-enactments.
Smith and Karmen previously worked together on Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened, another Netflix documentary based on the infamously fraudulent luxury music festival. Smith also served as a producer on the hit crime documentary series Tiger King.
Modine is mostly known for his performance as Pvt. Joker in Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 Vietnam war film Full Metal Jacket. More recently the actor has starred in The Dark Knight Rises and Sicario: Day of the Soldado, as well as smaller films like Breaking News in Yuba County and Wrong Turn.