Brian A. Miller
Co
COMING SOON
"The Big Rush"
Inspired by Louis Ippolito's book "Just One More Load"
From 2022 to 2024, Miller briefly relocated to Miami, Florida, to research and develop "The Big Rush", inspired by Louis Ippolito's book "Just One More Load". While immersing himself in the culture of Miami, Miller met with Ippolito at his home every weekend, recording more than a thousand hours of interviews, stories, and firsthand details about Ippolito's stranger-than-fiction life as the most prolific marijuana smuggler in U.S. history, who made over $1 billion tax free from 1972 to 1983. Their conversations also covered the trials, the convictions, the lengths the federal government went to in its attempts to convict him under the Kingpin Statute, and how Ippolito ultimately turned the tables on his pursuers.
To capture both sides of the story, Miller also went on ride-alongs with law enforcement, including SRT and narcotics units. That research shaped the screenplay's authenticity and revealed the real characters at the heart of the film.
The result is an action-adventure drawn from an unforgettable ensemble: a blue-collar family man turned smuggling kingpin, a charismatic Colombian supplier, a Yale-educated fixer, a used car salesman with a powder habit, and the DEA agents who could never quite catch up. Set against the excess of 1970s and '80s Miami and Los Angeles, every word of it is true, and it was the time of his life!
