If you can earn a little extra exposure for your upcoming film by casting someone who was in the original TV miniseries it’s based upon, you naturally go for it. Which might explain why Judd Nelson is joining the cast of Billionaire Boys Club.
The new film follows the same basic true-life story as the TV version, with Joe Hunt (Ansel Elgort) and Dean Karny (Taron Egerton) running a Ponzi scheme in the early 1980s called the Billionaire Boys Club. Part of their stake hinged on the financial input of tennis pro Ron Levin (Kevin Spacey), but when that investment proved to be worthless, Hunt murdered him and was convicted in 1987 of the crime, with his old friend Karny testifying against him.
Writer/director James Cox has hired Nelson, who played Joe back in the 1987 version as Ryan Hunt, Egerton’s father. He joins a cast that already also includes Suki Waterhouse and Emma Roberts.
Nelson tends to pop up mostly in low-budget genre and indie movies these days, but has been working consistently since the 1980s. He most recently worked on several episodes of US TV hit Empire and has various films awaiting release including The Bandit Hound, Kreep and The Downside Of Bliss.