​HBO gave the world its first look at the upcoming Bernie Madoff film The Wizard of Lies on Saturday, offering reporters at the TCA Winter Press Tour in Pasadena a :45 glimpse at the highly anticipated May offering.

Featuring dream sequences intercut with glimpses of the Madoffs’ pre-and post-scandal lives—all set to a driving rock beat—the teaser hints at dramatic fireworks when the film documenting the biggest Ponzi scheme in American history debuts this spring.

Based on Diana Henriques’ bestselling book of the same name, “The Wizard of Lies” stars Robert De Niro as the disgraced financier, and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife, Ruth. It marks De Niro’s first time appearing in an HBO production—a point not lost on the assembled writers.

When one asked given all the star power involved, including De Niro, Pfeiffer, and director Barry Levinson, whether this would have made more sense as a theatrical offering, they said they tried that route, and realized it wasn’t possible.

“We had looked at doing this as a theatrical before we brought it to HBO. We realized that no studio wanted to make it,” said Executive Producer Jane Rosenthal. “We would have had to go the independent film route, and it was going to be a struggle to get that made. You’d have a much smaller audience seeing it as a theatrical. So as screens are all blurring and the business is so rapidly changing, this was the best place to make the film and to ensure that we would have an amazing audience for it.”

In other news from HBO on Saturday, Quentin Schaffer, executive VP of corporate communications, told the room that the Carrie Fisher-Debbie Reynolds doc Bright Lights, which was brought forward form Mothers Day to January 7 following the pair’s deaths one day apart over the holiday season, scored 1.6 million viewers on its debut night. That number is second only to Scientology doc Going Clear. Schaffer reminded everyone that the network achieved that viewership “with very little time to promote” the new date. Since the debut, the doc has grown to 3 million viewers.

HBO also had a pair of Inauguration-related programming announcements: both Bill Maher and John Oliver will return in time to begin dissecting the new Trump Administration. Maher’s show returns on January 20—which happens to be Inauguration Day, Bill Maher’s birthday, as well as the birthday of Trump consigliere Kellyanne Conway, a trivia tidbit Schaffer shared with the crowd in Pasadena. John Oliver’s show returns a few weeks later on February 12.

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