testified early in the trial<\/a> that he was “blown away” by Rinsch’s “visionary” footage.<\/p>\n“The visuals were something that I had never seen before,” Friedlander said.<\/p>\n
![\"White]()
<\/p>\n
Carl Rinsch spent some of his own money shooting scenes before Netflix’s involvement.<\/p>\n
Carl Rinsch defense trial exhibit<\/p>\n
Rinsch’s defense lawyers showed jurors concept art that Rinsch and his production team created to illustrate the elaborate sci-fi world the director had built. Rinsch \u2014 a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of “Alien” and “Gladiator” director Ridley Scott \u2014 described “White Horse” as a potential franchise on par with “Star Wars” and “Game of Thrones.”<\/p>\n
After Netflix agreed to pay Rinsch for the project, the writer-director-producer spent months filming hundreds of hours of footage in Brazil, Uruguay, and Hungary, using the production codename “Conquest.”<\/p>\n
According to federal prosecutors, Rinsch “abandoned” “White Horse” after running out of money in the fall of 2019. He swindled Netflix out of the additional $11 million the streaming service agreed to pay him the following March, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
![\"White]()
<\/p>\n
The preliminary footage of “White Horse” ends on a cliffhanger. Netflix executives greenlit a script that would allow Carl Rinsch to finish a season of the story.<\/p>\n
Carl Rinsch defense trial exhibit<\/p>\n
During closing arguments, Rinsch’s attorney Daniel McGuinness urged the jurors to watch the six episodes \u2014 which totaled about 40 minutes \u2014 while they deliberated the verdict.<\/p>\n
It was absurd, McGuinness said, to think that Rinsch planned to scam Netflix through the production of the project when he had put so much creative energy into making it a reality.<\/p>\n
According to Rinsch’s defense attorneys, the director believed that the bulk of the $11 million March 2020 payment was meant to reimburse him for cost overruns he had paid out of his own pocket.<\/p>\n
Rinsch continued to work on “White Horse” throughout 2020 and in 2021, his lawyers said.<\/p>\n
To demonstrate this, the attorneys pointed to additional concept art that he had commissioned and created himself.<\/p>\n
![\"Carl]()
<\/p>\n
After Carl Rinsch received an $11 million infusion from Netflix in March 2020, he put some funds toward concept art for costume design.<\/p>\n
Carl Rinsch defense trial exhibit<\/p>\n
The artwork featured architectural and costume designs, which Rinsch said would go toward a potential second season.<\/p>\n
Much of the concept art depicted scenes in a castle. Trial records showed that Rinsch booked Palais Liechtenstein, a castle in Vienna. Rinsch testified he wanted to film additional scenes there, but he believed Netflix decided to scrap “White Horse” altogether before that could happen.<\/p>\n
![\"Carl]()
<\/p>\n
Rinsch testified he planned to film more scenes in a castle before Netflix officially pulled the plug.<\/p>\n
Carl Rinsch defense trial exhibit<\/p>\n
According to one draft of Rinsch’s screenplay, two twin-like “Organic Intelligence” beings would rule over their society and then betray each other in a Shakespearean fashion, legal records show.<\/p>\n
The concept images for the unfinished scenes, entered into evidence in Rinsch’s criminal trial, depict an apparent murder, with one of the beings lying on the floor in a pool of golden blood. The scene is not included in Rinsch’s preliminary episodes.<\/p>\n
![\"Carl]()
<\/p>\n
Netflix executives testified that “White Horse” could not be salvaged from the existing scenes.<\/p>\n
Carl Rinsch defense trial exhibit<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Rinsch’s concept art was a fig leaf. Pointing to an agreement between him and Netflix, they said Rinsch was supposed to spend the entire $11 million infusion on finishing the first season \u2014 not just a small fraction of the sum for concept art. One prosecutor described the funds Rinsch paid to book the castle as “a $30,000 down payment on an $11 million fraud.”<\/p>\n
One of the prosecution’s arguments centered on Rinsch’s purchase of multiple Rolls-Royces.<\/p>\n
Rinsch testified that the cars would be used for what he called the “Calvacade” \u2014 a procession of cars that shuttled diplomats through the “no man’s land” between the “Organic Intelligence” beings’ independent cities and the human world.<\/p>\n
![\"Carl]()
<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Rinsch’s purchase of multiple Rolls-Royces wasn’t needed for the “Calvacade” scenes, as his lawyers suggested.<\/p>\n
Carl Rinsch defense trial exhibit<\/p>\n
In closing arguments, Assistant US Attorney David Markewitz turned the concept art against Rinsch.<\/p>\n
He pointed the jury to planning documents that showed he had planned to shoot the “Calvacade” scenes in Brazil in 2019 \u2014 two years before he purchased the Rolls-Royces under his own name. On insurance records, Rinsch had said the cars were for himself, not for a Netflix production.<\/p>\n
“At an even more basic level, you know it would make no sense to actually buy five Rolls-Royces just to shoot a few scenes with them,” Markewitz told the jury.”<\/p>\n
Shortly before a sober-faced jury walked out of the deliberation room and announced they found him guilty of all counts, Rinsch said he was happy a journalist at Business Insider had watched the six preliminary episodes and understood his vision.<\/p>\n
“I’m glad you watched it,” he told Business Insider. “It means a lot to me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Netflix executives first saw a glimpse of “White Horse” in 2018, they were blown away. Cindy Holland,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[123976,5820,123973,18,117,19,17,77844,327,127,123979,123978,123975,13938,1801,123974,123977,43780,2939,65],"class_list":{"0":"post-232547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-additional-concept-art","9":"tag-being","10":"tag-carl-rinsch","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-jury","16":"tag-movies","17":"tag-netflix","18":"tag-netflix-executive","19":"tag-own-money","20":"tag-preliminary-episode","21":"tag-production","22":"tag-project","23":"tag-prosecutor","24":"tag-scene","25":"tag-trial","26":"tag-white-horse","27":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115718483012240589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}