Anthony Scaramucci Executive Producing HBO Movie While in White House

Anthony Scaramucci seems plenty busy with his duties as communications director for President Donald Trump’s White House, but apparently he’s got time enough to help make an upcoming HBO movie.

The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Scaramucci, when he’s not trading inappropriate barbs with hostile reporters or former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, is co-executive producing a TV movie based on disgraced football coach Joe Paterno.

The movie had been titled Happy Valley, but HBO is seeking a different name because a BBC/Netflix crime drama has already claimed that title. HBO now refers to the movie, set for airing in 2018, as the “Untitled Barry Levinson Project,” since Levinson is directing.

The movie stars Al Pacino as Paterno, the former head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions football team who was fired, a casualty of a sex abuse scandal involving his defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky.

Pacino and Scaramucci have a bit of history together, given the actor was once a keynote speaker at the SALT Conference, a gathering of movers and shakers in Las Vegas that Scaramucci founded about a decade ago when he was managing the SkyBridge hedge fund.

In Scaramucci’s recently disclosed financial reports, he lists as one of his many sources of income the Edward R. Pressman Film Corp., which is a production company making the Paterno HBO movie.

HBO confirmed that he will receive credit as a co-executive producer because he brought in financing for the project prior to the network’s involvement.

Scaramucci did not respond to a request for comment, though when Pacino signed on to play Paterno back in June, Scaramucci tweeted out the news.

Scaramucci also lists in his financial disclosure a Cheri Oteri movie called Crazy for the Boys, though he is only an investor in that film, due in 2018, without a credit. His disclosure says the investment is valued between $250,001 and $500,000 while he has received between $50,001 and $100,000 for his work at Pressman.

Scaramucci’s ties to Hollywood also include hosting Wall Street Week on the Fox Business Network, though prior to that he was a frequent guest on that network along with the Fox News Channel.

Fox Business host Liz Claman was one of the earliest to invite the then hedge fund manager on the network, back in 2008 after meeting him at SALT.

“I was very impressed with him, so I invited him on my show,” she recalled in an interview with THR.

“He said he would and said he also was going on CNBC prior to my show,” Claman explained. “I know how these things work, so I told him if CNBC knew, they’d cancel him. So I bowed out, telling him — remember, this was 2008 — that they were Goliath and we were David.”

Claman added: “So he tells me, ‘Yes, and you know how that ended.’ Then he called CNBC on the spot and canceled so he could be on my show. A year later he burned me, but that’s business. Then, when he was on my show after that, he got on his knees right there on the set and apologized. The guy’s a bridge-builder.”

According to Scaramucci’s financial disclosure, he earned $88,461 in 2016 as a contributor at Fox Business. 

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