Leonardo DiCaprio immortalized Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 blockbuster, The Wolf of Wall Street, portraying the rise and fall of former stockbroker and convicted felon with coke-filled intensity.
But Paramount+’s upcoming docuseries The Real Wolf of Wall Street promises to reveal the true story of the Belfort and Stratton Oakmont boiler room brokers, and it’s “darker and more debauched than previously known.”
The three-part documentary is currently in production by Maxine Productions (Quiet on Set, The Fall of Diddy) and See It Now Studios (the same division behind recent true crime documentaries Don’t Date Brandon and Thirst Trap) and is expected to premiere later this year.
The Real Wolf of Wall Street includes exclusive interviews with insiders who have never spoken about Belfort before, as well as new footage and 15,000 never-before-seen government documents. It tells the story of how Mr. Belfort became the face of 1990s excess before his fraudulent securities firm went bankrupt and he was sent to prison. (Mr. Belfort is not involved in this project at this time.)
As head of Stratton Oakmont, Belfort led a stock market scheme to defraud investors with “pump-and-dump” sales of penny stocks. Before it all fell apart, he was famous for his extreme party lifestyle, which involved tons of drugs, women, and yachts. In 1999, Belfort pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering charges after securities regulators approached Stratton Oakmont. He served 22 months in federal prison, becoming an FBI informant and testifying against several co-conspirators. In 2007, Scorsese published his memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, which Scorsese adapted into the Oscar-nominated film of the same name.
“The Real Wolf of Wall Street” is produced by Maxine Productions (part of the nonfiction division of Sony Pictures Television) and Bloomberg. Executive producers are Mary Robertson, Anneka Jones and Jesse Sweet of Maxine Productions. Bloomberg’s Jason Leopold. Kathy Thornton, Amy Palmer, Michael Bloom. See It Now Studios’ Susan Zirinsky and Terrence Long serve as executive producers, and Isu Saliba and Carla Tortola serve as supervising producers. Sweet will also serve as showrunner.
