Inspired by the true story that rocked the town of Roslyn, NY in 2004 that garnered attention nationwide, Bad Education, debuting same time as the U.S. on Sunday, 26 April at 8 am exclusively on HBO GO, centres on the stunning impact and aftermath of a multi-million-dollar embezzlement scheme. The darkly comical film highlights the deficiencies of the public education system in the U.S. while examining the broader forces that foster greed, corruption, and lack of accountability in our institutions.
Starring Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe and Tony Award winner Hugh Jackman (“The Greatest Showman,” “Les Misérables”); and Emmy®, Academy Award, Golden Globe and SAG Award winner Allison Janney (“I, Tonya,” “Mom”); the film is directed by Cory Finley (“Thoroughbreds”) and written by Mike Makowsky (“I Think We’re Alone Now”).
Intelligently written and tautly directed, the film shows a community wooed by the charismatic superintendent and enamored by the school’s success and the resulting economic impact. It is also a celebration of the Roslyn High community–their ability to expose that dark time in the school’s history and their continued tenacity to remain one of the top schools in the country today.
Growing up in Roslyn, it was years before Makowsky would fully understand the implications of the case or discover that it was student reporters from his high school newspaper The Beacon who broke the story. Ironically, the New York Times didn’t report the embezzlement scheme, purportedly the largest in American public school history, until one of their writers saw the copy of The Beacon his son had brought home from school.
The film also stars Emmy® winner Ray Romano (“The Irish Man,” “The Big Sick”) as Big Bob Spicer, the school board president. Additional cast includes Geraldine Viswanathan (“Miracle Workers,” “Blockers”), Alex Wolff (“Jumanji: The Next Level,” “Hereditary”), Rafael Casal (“Blindspotting”) and Annaleigh Ashford (“Frozen,” “Master of Sex”).
Bad Education, an HBO Films presentation, is directed by Cory Finley; written by Mike Makowsky, based on a New York Magazine article by Robert Kolker; produced by Fred Berger and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones for Automatik; Edward Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, and Oren Moverman for Sight Unseen Pictures; Mike Makowsky for Slater Hall; executive produced by Leonid Lebedev and Caroline Jacko.
