Chris Smith, the director of Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened, will be directing Operation Varsity Blues for Netflix, based on the college admissions fraud of 2019 in the United States. It will premiere on March 17.
Everything you’ve heard is true. But you haven’t heard everything. Using real conversations recreated from FBI wiretaps the filmmaker behind Fyre brings you Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal pic.twitter.com/kwsqTCSkqq
— NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) February 22, 2021
According to Deadline, the story’s synopsis reads: “An examination that goes beyond the celebrity-driven headlines and dives into the methods used by Rick Singer, the man at the center of the shocking 2019 college admissions scandal, to persuade his wealthy clients to cheat an educational system already designed to benefit the privileged. Using an innovative combination of interviews and narrative recreations of the FBI’s wiretapped conversations between Singer and his clients, Operation Varsity Blues offers a rare glimpse into the enigmatic figure behind a scheme that exposed the lengths wealthy families would go to for admission into elite colleges, and angered a nation already grappling with the effects of widespread inequality.”
Smith also executive produced Netflix’s Tiger King and will work with actor Matthew Modine for the upcoming documentary.
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The 2019 scandal had rocked USA after some big names, like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives, were among the 50 people indicted in a widespread college admission bribery scandal. They were charged of paying William Singer, an admissions consultant, $25 million over eight years, as reported by CBS News.
The racket included the administrators of the standardised tests, ACT and SAT, aimed for undergraduate admissions, and universities such as Stanford, Yale and University of South California, that aided the children of the 50 parents charged, to cheat during the tests, and tamper with their eligibilities, labelling them as athletic recruits. An example of the same was released by Netflix as an audio clip.
The film will be based on the FBI investigation of the alleged scheme, originally named Operation Varsity Blues, and the information that the agency had gathered by tapping onto the phones of the ones charged.