EXCLUSIVE: The former Mayor of New York City turned controversial Donald Trump fixer, Rudy Giuliani, is becoming great fodder for feature documentaries. This morning, Deadline has learned that a second docu is already in production on the former NYC-based U.S. Attorney mob crusader from MRC Non-Fiction and Rolling Stone Films and Oscar-nominated Zach Heinzerling (Cutie & The Boxer) and two-time Emmy Award-winner Gabrielle Schonder (The NRA: Under Fire) in the directors’ chairs.
My colleague Peter White broke earlier this AM that another Giuliani feature docu from the team behind Hulu’s recent WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn doc is also happening.
The MRC Non-Fiction and Rolling Stone version will be based off of magazine scribe Seth Hettena’s 2020 article “What Happened to America’s Mayor?”. MRC Non-Fiction is bankrolling the project which is set for release in 2022.
The Heinzerling and Schonder nonfiction film will reflect on what Giuliani once represented to most Americans: a man whose steady response to the attacks of September 11th, 2001 transcended partisan politics and transformed him into a national hero. It will further explore how the man christened “America’s Mayor” fell from grace and into a downward spiral that’s marred his once venerable reputation.
In the wake of consulting the nation’s former POTUS, Giuliani is currently under criminal investigation from the Justice Department with authorities recently raiding his NY home and office. One of many low points for Giuliani occurred on Nov. 7 when he made false allegations about rigged voting machines in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election between Joe Biden and Trump. The press conference occurred at Four Season Total Landscaping, a small business in the Holmesburg neighborhood of Near Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that was near a sex shop and a crematorium. At the presser, Giuliani called up a witness to the voting count shenanigans, Daryl Brooks, who Politico reported was a convicted sex offender. It was speculated at the time that the Trump campaign intended for the press conference to go down at the Four Seasons Hotel, which was five blocks from the Pennsylvania Convention Center where Philadelphia’s ballots were being counted.
“Zach and Gabrielle are both thoughtful storytellers who have had incredible success telling rich stories about complicated characters,” said Amit Dey, Head of MRC Non-Fiction. “Of all the things one can say about Rudy Giuliani, ‘complicated’ may be an understatement but Seth’s article captured the essence of what we believe is a true American epic, from Flatbush to Four Seasons Landscaping, regardless of where it ends.”
“Rarely has a public figure in America fallen so far so fast in the public eye,” says Jason Fine, Rolling Stone’s Director Content Development. “As we’ve reported on Rudy’s downfall — his bizarre political maneuvering, shady business dealings, and now, being under criminal investigation by the same U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan that he once ran — we see his story as a parable for the dark forces that have shaped American politics.”
Heinzerling is repped by UTA. Schonder is repped by ICM.
Rolling Stone is part of PMRC Holdings, a joint venture between MRC and Penske Media Company (PMC), the latter being Deadline’s parent company.
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