Jeremy Jordan stars as Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart in Spinning Gold, about how the maverick recording label made Donna Summer, KISS, Village People, and many others household names.
The film stars a bevy of notable folks playing musical legends, including Ledisi as Gladys Knight, Wiz Khalifa as George Clinton, Jason Derulo as Ron Isley, Jay Pharoah as Cecil Holmes, Sebastian Maniscalco as Giorgio Moroder, and Tayla Parx as Donna Summer.
Neil Bogart’s son Tim Bogart, who directed and produced, explained the backstory at Cannes:
The label ultimately got folder under Republic Records within Universal Music Group after its decadent 1970s run. Via Deadline:
The boom of the music scene and opulence of the drug era took its toll on Casablanca, ultimately putting it in a strenuous financial position. In its desperation it relied on a 1974 two-record set of audio highlights from TV’s The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, entitled Here’s Johnny: Magic Moments from the Tonight Show. Bogart pushed the album as gold with 500K copies in an effort that it would turn platinum, but alas that did not happen, with a flood of unsold records sent back to the label.
Watch the trailer.
Image: YouTube / E! News
