On November 22, The New York Times published an article about a director, Carl Erik Rinsch, who signed a contract with Netflix to create the sci-fi series ‘Conquest’ in 2018. Despite Netflix allocating over $55 million to the project over the past three years, the series has never been released.
Let’s learn which part of the funds Carl Eric Rinsch spent on stocks, crypto and luxuries, and what turned out to be a good investment.
How Carl Rinsch lost $6M on the stock market
In November 2018, Netflix signed Carl Erik Rinsche to film the series and paid out $61.2 million in instalments. Notably, $14 million was allocated to production company 30West and other early investors in the project that the director brought in before the full sale of the rights to Netflix. The series did not have a full script at the time of the agreement.
In March 2020, with the onset of the pandemic, Rinsche asked Netflix for additional funding. The company gave him $11 million. According to bank and records included in the divorce case, the director transferred $10.5 million into his personal brokerage account at Charles Schwab.
Using options, he made two bets:
📈 on the rise of biotech company Gilead Sciences, which announced it was testing anti-Covid drugs;
📉 on the decline of the S&P 500 index. It had already been down by 30% then, but Rinsche was confident the trend would continue.
Within weeks, he lost $5.9 million.
How the Netflix director made a fortune on Dogecoin
In March 2021, Netflix informed Rinsche of stopping the funding for the series. In response, the director accused them of breach of contract.
According to The New York Times, around the same time, Rinsch moved more than $4 million from his brokerage account to the Kraken crypto exchange. Here, his investment brought a stunning return: thanks to Dogecoin, the director's balance had reached about $27 million by May 2021.
Let's take a look at the Doge chart in the spring of 2021. If we look from the very bottom, in the first days of March to the very peak on May 8, we can see a phenomenal growth of over 1400%, from $0.04765 to $0.73995. However, through the three months, the Doge price was up by 580%.
Back then, Elon Musk was actively promoting Doge on Twitter. He frequently posted memes about the coin. The fall of Doge, as well as the entire crypto market, began after Musk's appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live on May 8. There, he mentioned Doge several times.
When exactly Rinsch bought and sold Doge remains unknown. However, as you can see from the chart, he picked a very good time to invest in it. Notably, in correspondence with a Kraken representative, he wrote "thank you and God bless crypto".
Eric Rinsch's spending and proceedings with his wife and Netflix
Following his Dogecoin success, the director embraced a luxurious life and bought:
🚗 5 Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari;
⌚ a Vacheron Constantin watch worth $387,630;
💰 high-end furniture and designer clothes.
These expenses totaled almost $9 million.
Rinsch's wife's lawyers suggest that this was his way of trying to hide the income from Doge. But in court, he insisted that these were props for the series funded by Netflix.
Later, in an arbitration with Netflix, Rinsch claimed that it was his personal funds, stating that the company owed him about $14 million under the contract.
According to The New York Times, a judge is expected to rule on the Netflix case soon.
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