The Billionaire Boys Club movie is based upon a true story of a group of wealthy young men who got into trouble with the law. The group was founded in Southern California in the 1980s and was led by Joe Hunt. The boys were known for their lavish lifestyle and high-stakes investments that often didn’t pan out. In 1987, after two club members were killed in a suspicious car accident, Hunt was arrested and charged with murder. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
The Billionaire Boys Club movie, starring Ansel Elgort and Taron Egerton, was released in 2018. It tells the story of the club’s rise and fall, with a focus on Hunt’s trial and conviction. While the film takes some liberties with the facts, it is generally accurate to the events that occurred. The movie is a good place to start if you’re interested in learning more about the Billionaire Boys Club. But be warned: it is a bit of a cautionary tale.
Is The Billionaire Boys Club A True Story?
The Billionaire Boys Club is based upon a true story of a group led by Joe Hunt that reared young men with entrepreneurial geniuses for commodities trading into lavish lifestyles, donning them with fancy titles like company president, executive vice-president, chairman of the board, and the likes. The plan was simple, a company that would recruit a group of young men with money in their early twenties who had a penchant for driving fancy cars and spending their family’s inheritances and allowances.
So, from different sources of shady income, Joe Hunt and his associates managed to raise enough capital to get a nice posh floor in a top-level West Hollywood building to set up operations for a trading floor that would have the most lavish decorations. It was all for show because it was a glorified Ponzi scheme that skimmed from the top and let Joe and his buddies live like kings in La La land. They were regulars at the Hard Rock Cafe, La Scala, and the China Club and spent nothing short of US$ 3,000 a night, leaving US$ 500 and upward tips. The men would date girls and take them on shopping sprees in Rodeo Drive, all with the money proceeds from signing in new members.
Living Large
The Billionaire Boys were living large, it was all party, never work: Polo sessions, shotgun safaris, weekends in Las Vegas. But Joe had to keep getting money into the Club. So, he goes out and provides some actual consulting to make some cash. Still, the group was already living beyond their means. However, the trading strategies did, for a short while, provide some serious money.
The Crime
When a freelance journalist played a prank on Joe Hunt that would result in the Billionaire Boys Club head honcho not getting his money, things went from financial crimes to murder. Because Hunt and one of his associates murdered the journalist by shackling him and shooting him in the back of the head, to later dispose of the corpse in a desert. Still, the murders didn’t end there.
A few days after the murder, Hunt and a few other Billionaire Boys Club members wanted to take an Iranian heir out for a trip to Northern California to take his father’s money. So the heir and the boys put the old man in the trunk of the car and drove up state. The plan was to torture the old man until he gave up the money, but the man died in the trunk of the car from suffocation.
The Demise
Eventually, the cops picked up on the trail of the Billionaire Boys Club, and Joe Hunt was put in jail for murder and financial shenanigans. The movie is wildly entertaining but serves as a cautionary tale. On a side note, it is one of the final movies that Kevin Spacey did before he fell out of grace with the Hollywood industry from his sexual misconduct allegations that would eventually signify the end of his career. With this, we wrap up our coverage of this topic here at Otakukart. Thanks for reading our piece, and until next time!
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