Netflix vs Hulu: Competing Fyre Festival Documentaries Sets Off War of Words Between Two Filmmakers

15.01.2019 22:44

TheWrap.com

Hulu’s surprise-release of its documentary on the failed Fyre Festival on Monday, four days before Netflix’s own film on the disastrous event was set to drop, did not sit well with Chris Smith, the director of Netflix’s version.

And that led to a war of words between the directors of the two competing films, including accusations of unethical behavior on both sides.

In an interview with The Ringer, Smith called out Hulu for paying Billy McFarland, the founder of Fyre Media and the person most responsible for the failed 2017 event, to appear in their film.

Also Read: Netflix Acquires Documentary About Disastrous Fyre Music Festival

“We were aware of [the Hulu production] because we were supposed to film Billy McFarland for an interview,” Smith told the website. “He told us that they were offering $250,000 for an interview. He asked us if we would pay him $125,000.” Smith added that, since so many people were swindled out of money by McFarland — he’s currently serving a six-year prison sentence for defrauding investors — that the Netflix filmmakers didn’t want him to be benefiting in any way with money. He had also pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud.

McFarland is featured predominately in Hulu’s doc “Fyre Fraud,” though its filmmakers Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason, while admitting they did pay McFarland a fee to appear, denied that the price was that high. Furst told The Ringer: “That was not the amount. It was less than that. I don’t know why Chris [Smith] is quoting him that way. We both made a film about the same person. We know the person is a compulsive liar.”

An individual with knowledge of the Hulu production told TheWrap that the filmmakers did pay a nominal fee to license footage from McFarland, but it was below the $250,000 that Smith claims McFarland said it was.

Also Read: Fyre Festival Email Leak: 'No One Is Eating So Therefore No One's Pooping'

Furst also pointed out to The Ringer, however, that Netflix has an ethical dilemma of its own. Netflix’s documentary, “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened” was produced with Jerry Media, the social media agency that handled marketing for the Fyre Festival.

Hulu’s doc features an interview with Oren Aks, a former designer for the company, who claims that they were instructed to continue to promote the festival, even though they knew it was not going to be what they were advertising, going as far as to delete any negative or accusatory posts on the festival’s Instagram page. Jerry Media is one of the defendants named in celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos’s class-action lawsuit against the festival.

The filmmakers of the Netflix doc responded to TheWrap, in a statement sent by Netflix:

Also Read: Fyre Festival Organizer Freed on $300K Bail, Uses Public Defender

“We were happy to work with Jerry Media and a number of others on the film. At no time did they, or any others we worked with, request favorable coverage in our film, which would be against our ethics. We stand behind our film, believe it is an unbiased and illuminating look at what happened, and look forward to sharing it with audiences around the world.”

Hulu declined to comment while Jerry Media did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Both documentaries are focused on the failed 2017 music festival organized by McFarland and rapper Ja Rule that turned into an internet sensation and a subsequent criminal case. The festival on a remote, private island in the Bahamas, was hyped by social media influencers and celebrities as a lavish, exclusive event. But, attendees who had spent thousands of dollars to attend the festival, found themselves virtually stranded in woefully inadequate conditions.

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