
A major Chinese visual effects studio has sued two producers accusing them of engineering a brazen con spanning nearly a decade that’s left the company and other investors in the hole for over $234 million.
Base Media claims it was swindled by a pair of producers, Remington Chase and Kevin Robl, who forged documents and impersonated its chief executive to secure sizable loans that, unknown to Base, signed away property and film equity rights. The Beijing-based company says the men used the loans to negotiate an ownership stake in Base while pocketing millions of dollars that were borrowed in its name.
“They spent several years cultivating a business and personal relationship with Base and its CEO by falsely representing to Base their character, their contacts, and their intentions, so that they could convince their investors that Base was actually involved in their investments,” reads the complaint filed on Thursday in California federal court. “Once they had garnered Base’s trust, they misappropriated Base’s name, forging loan agreements and investment agreements and signatures of Base agents, including Base’s CEO, creating fake Base email accounts, creating fake Base entities, opening bank accounts on behalf of those fake Base entities, and directing funds they were purportedly raising for Base to themselves.”
Base is one of the leading visual effects studios in Asia. Its credits include working on blockbuster movies and TV shows,…