Stars, Bars and Fast Cars
Funding for Vox Day's Rebel's Run film adaptation was stolen by a Utah con artist that drew investors in with promises of "Banking the Unbankable".
Back in 2019, a three-minute trailer and mini preview for a live-action film adaptation of Vox Day’s Rebel’s Run hit You Tube. The video, a crowdfunding teaser, features a gorgeous red-haired woman, perfectly cast for the confederate flag-attired superheroine Rebel of Arkhaven Comics’ Alt Hero series, jumping into a drop top car before peeling off and aiming a gun behind her as she drives, hair blowing perfectly in the wind. The video touts involvement by none other than series contributor and all-around comics legend Chuck Dixon, Galatia Films (of Watchmen movie fame) and Scooter Downey on to direct; it was clear that the ever-provocative Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale) was looking to send a pretty damn big shot across the bow of modern day superhero cinema. Backers would quickly fund the project to the tune of a million dollars.
Over the next few years, Beale kept fans updated on the film’s progress with periodic posts on his Vox Populi blog, with things hitting a zenith in August of 2020. He mentioned that the first draft of Dixon’s script had been finished, with “action scenes that would make Michael Bay’s eyes light up”, and that financing had been procured for a budget based on said script.
Beale ended the post saying,
“It’s all going very well, so well, in fact, that one of the funds working with the production company has already requested two more scripts, one a direct sequel and another set in the same Alt-Hero universe.”
It would be the last post about the movie for two years.
On October 13 of this year, he announced that the money was gone, both the SEC and the FBI were involved and that “…it would not be a surprise if the first arrest does not turn out to be the last one.”
What happened?
While you can read a fairly detailed summary of events from Beale himself in his most recent update, the whole thing is a drama worthy of the Cofeezilla treatment (what, you don’t watch Coffeezilla? Shame).
The “first arrest” alluded to by Beale in that blog post refers to one James Wolfgramm, who according to authorities also went by the aliases Semisi Niu and James Vaka Niu. Wolfgramm rose to prominence in 2018 as a fairly stock template faux crypto-billionaire, posting inspirational quotes and carefully posed photos on his LinkedIn, along with images of luxury cars and suitcases full of cash that in reality were swiped from elsewhere on the internet. He involved himself in schemes ranging from real estate scams with an indoor soccer complex, attempting to sell bitcoin mining rigs that didn’t exist, and running a shady capital management company, Ohana Capital Financial, that made off with the $1 million raised by the film’s backers (in addition to millions more).
We reached out to Beale via email for comment, who simply responded that, “Everything I wish to say on the subject has been publicly posted.”
As Will Sommer notes in his (mostly) surprisingly measured write-up at The Daily Beast, “Beale’s history of racism could have made it difficult for Rebel’s Run, which stars a character sometimes depicted in a Confederate flag bustier, to find traditional financing”, and could very well have been what made him seek out the services of a capital group that claimed to specialize in “Banking the Unbankable.”
Researching Ohana Capital raises red flags; upon merely clicking the first link of their google results, my security suite loaded a warning page advising me the site was untrustworthy. Not wishing to push my luck, I ran their URL through WHOIS and discovered that their domain is registered with DomainsByProxy, a company that registers domains on their own behalf so as to keep a website’s actual ownership information private. The practice is legal, but also makes it a common haven for dubious businesses and phishing operations (and if DomainsByProxy’s complaint page on the Better Business Bureau website is any indication, that frequently seems to be the case).
In the statement issued by the DOJ, Wolfgramm’s sham financial company
“…falsely claimed to have a Board of Advisors and falsely promised that OCF customer funds were bonded. Under these pretenses, OCF received millions of dollars from customers who believed their money would be kept on deposit until the customers directed the release of their funds. Instead, Wolfgramm and OCF spent these funds on unrelated business expenses.”
According to Beale, lawyers for Viral Films Media, the film’s production company, vetted the firm and had allegedly refused to sign the final contract or pay a security deposit until further contingencies were met, but a producer associated with the project (possibly Daniel McNicoll) approved the transfer of funds anyway. Camestros Felapton does an impressively deep dive into the finances on his blog.
Beale does seem to be confident that at least some of the funds will eventually be recovered, and is continuing to move forward with film projects. Wolfgramm has been indicted and was arraigned on Friday on four counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering. His trial is scheduled for January.
While the future of a Rebel’s Run film is now in doubt, we’ll be sure to have the popcorn ready as this legal drama continues to unfold.
This just proves that the con artists are everywhere and you can't ask too many questions before writing a check.
I read the post on his web site. I'm not surprised Politico wrote an evenhanded account, Vox would've pimpslslled via the courts.
If the woke didn't infest society, the movie would've been financed normally and released this year.
Again this is another danger of wokeism, the ostracised have to deal with really shady characters in order to get stuff done. We need to be vigilant