The FBI has taken a beating under President Trump, who has regularly criticized the agency, going so far as to call some of its investigators “human scum.”
That hasn’t done much for FBI morale, but its image gets perhaps a sorely needed boost in one of this year’s most-honored true crime series, HBO’s McMillion$. The six-part series, directed by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, carefully reconstructs how the FBI busted a stunningly brazen and elaborate fraud: the rigging of McDonald’s popular Monopoly game promotion.
“We weren’t surprised to discover the FBI could be hardworking, doing a good job,” Lazarte tells Deadline. “There’s probably 80 to 90 percent of cases that we, the public, don’t know anything about…We really appreciated that this was a story we actually could tell, and that we could learn about the intricacies of how agents work collectively, how they introduce new ideas…...
That hasn’t done much for FBI morale, but its image gets perhaps a sorely needed boost in one of this year’s most-honored true crime series, HBO’s McMillion$. The six-part series, directed by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, carefully reconstructs how the FBI busted a stunningly brazen and elaborate fraud: the rigging of McDonald’s popular Monopoly game promotion.
“We weren’t surprised to discover the FBI could be hardworking, doing a good job,” Lazarte tells Deadline. “There’s probably 80 to 90 percent of cases that we, the public, don’t know anything about…We really appreciated that this was a story we actually could tell, and that we could learn about the intricacies of how agents work collectively, how they introduce new ideas…...
- 8/7/2020
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
If you’ve watched HBO’s “McMillions,” about the McDonald’s Monopoly scam, you’d know the absolutely wild story is truly stranger than fiction. “It is very much, if I wrote a script about this and put that in there and gave it to friends to read, they’d be like, ‘Pshhh, that’s not real, that’s just not a believable thing,’” James Lee Hernandez, who co-directed the show with Brian Lazarte, told Gold Derby during our Meet the Experts: Documentary panel (watch above). “But that’s really what happened.”
A six-part series, “McMillions” uncovers how Jerry “Uncle Jerry” Jacobson, then the head of security of the marketing firm working on the game, defrauded $24 million between 1989 and 2001, resulting in nearly no legitimate winner of the $1 million prize during that period. The story involves the Italian mob, an undercover operation, a strip club-turned-strip church called the Fuzzy Bunny, and a colorful array of characters,...
A six-part series, “McMillions” uncovers how Jerry “Uncle Jerry” Jacobson, then the head of security of the marketing firm working on the game, defrauded $24 million between 1989 and 2001, resulting in nearly no legitimate winner of the $1 million prize during that period. The story involves the Italian mob, an undercover operation, a strip club-turned-strip church called the Fuzzy Bunny, and a colorful array of characters,...
- 7/1/2020
- by Joyce Eng
- Gold Derby
We’ve got questions, and you’ve (maybe) got answers! With another week of TV gone by, we’re lobbing queries left and right about shows including The Flash, Criminal Minds, Good Trouble and Star Trek: Picard!
1 | When Netflix’s Ragnarok finally pitted Magne and Vidar against each other, were you hoping for a longer, bloodier battle? Also, did the old woman with the crazy eyes just turn into a bird? (What does she know and why didn’t she tell us!?)
More from TVLineQuotes of the Week: The Bachelor, B99, The Flash, Grey's Anatomy and MoreFlash Boss Teases New...
1 | When Netflix’s Ragnarok finally pitted Magne and Vidar against each other, were you hoping for a longer, bloodier battle? Also, did the old woman with the crazy eyes just turn into a bird? (What does she know and why didn’t she tell us!?)
More from TVLineQuotes of the Week: The Bachelor, B99, The Flash, Grey's Anatomy and MoreFlash Boss Teases New...
- 2/7/2020
- TVLine.com
Doug Mathews is the FBI Special Agent that got the ball rolling on the investigation into McDonalds’ Monopoly fraud, resulting in the discovery of a huge scheme behind the winners of many of the big prize contests. In McMillions, Mathews said that prior to taking on the investigation into the McDonald’s Monopoly contest, he was working on healthcare fraud cases, […]...
- 2/5/2020
- by Shaunee Flowers
- Monsters and Critics
McMillions is a story so good it seems like it comes from one of the greatest fiction writers of all time.
But it's not fiction, it's fact.
Executive produced by Mark Wahlberg and written and directed by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, McMillions screams for an "inspired by" counterpart.
The truth of the Monopoly scandal on McMillions features a cast of characters as rich as those at the heart of this tale that brushed against the lives of so many Americans.
Because just like the millions of people who won't admit they watch television thinking their movie-only preference makes them seem more refined, a lot of people don't admit to walking through the golden arches for a tasty treat.
But the lure of instant prizes and potential millions with McDonald's Monopoly game got even the refined to give McDonald's a try.
And like McDonald's itself, the incredible people...
But it's not fiction, it's fact.
Executive produced by Mark Wahlberg and written and directed by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, McMillions screams for an "inspired by" counterpart.
The truth of the Monopoly scandal on McMillions features a cast of characters as rich as those at the heart of this tale that brushed against the lives of so many Americans.
Because just like the millions of people who won't admit they watch television thinking their movie-only preference makes them seem more refined, a lot of people don't admit to walking through the golden arches for a tasty treat.
But the lure of instant prizes and potential millions with McDonald's Monopoly game got even the refined to give McDonald's a try.
And like McDonald's itself, the incredible people...
- 2/3/2020
- by Carissa Pavlica
- TVfanatic
Even if you already know the story of the rigged McDonald’s Monopoly game (which was covered extensively by The Daily Beast in 2018), HBO’s McMillions documentary series is a fun, informative and highly entertaining look into one strange scam.
The basic details are this: From 1989 to 2001, ex-cop Jerome “Jerry” Jacobson rigged the McDonald’s Monopoly game by basically handing over winning pieces to everyone from mobsters to single mothers in exchange for some of the prize money. Meaning, for about 12 years, nearly all of the game’s big-ticket winners were frauds. In 2000, a tip led the FBI to begin...
The basic details are this: From 1989 to 2001, ex-cop Jerome “Jerry” Jacobson rigged the McDonald’s Monopoly game by basically handing over winning pieces to everyone from mobsters to single mothers in exchange for some of the prize money. Meaning, for about 12 years, nearly all of the game’s big-ticket winners were frauds. In 2000, a tip led the FBI to begin...
- 1/29/2020
- TVLine.com
During the lively and revealing first episode of HBO’s “McMillions,” it feels like this increasingly wild true story could get wrapped up in an hour. Told entirely from the perspective of FBI investigators, an anonymous tip taken and forgotten on a Post-it note quickly unfurls into a million-dollar fraud case reliant on the crazy popular McDonald’s Monopoly game. The authorities put a plan into place. The clown-fronted fast food corporation is enlisted to help. Evidence is gathered, suspects are pinned down, and that’s about when you realize the people who “won” the prize money aren’t actually winners at all — and you have no idea who’s behind the scandal.
“McMillions” builds audience engagement quickly, thanks to fantastic talking heads and an inherently exciting story, but the six-part docuseries from writers and directors James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte is smart enough to slow down — and even back up — when it should.
“McMillions” builds audience engagement quickly, thanks to fantastic talking heads and an inherently exciting story, but the six-part docuseries from writers and directors James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte is smart enough to slow down — and even back up — when it should.
- 1/28/2020
- by Ben Travers
- Indiewire
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