True-Crime Doc 'I Got Bombed at Harvey's' Lands North American Deal With Jolt.film
Jolt.film has acquired all North American rights to I Got Bombed at Harvey's, a true-crime documentary about the 1980 Harvey's Resort Hotel bombing in Lake Tahoe, with a theatrical and digital release planned across the United States and Canada (Deadline).
The film revisits a brazen extortion attempt that unfolded on August 26–27, 1980. A booby-trapped time bomb loaded with more than 1,000 pounds of dynamite was wheeled through the front doors of Harvey's Wagon Wheel Casino. The device came with a demand: $3 million, delivered within 24 hours. What followed was a two-day standoff that ended in detonation.
Directed by Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel, the documentary is produced by Propagate Content, the production company co-led by Co-CEO Howard T. Owens. The executive producer roster includes Chris Smith alongside Andrew Corkin, Owens, Ben Silverman, Drew Buckley, and Isabel San Vargas for Propagate Content. Producers on the project include James Packer, Theo Love, Michael Driscoll, Robert Marshall, Brian Lazarte, James Lee Hernandez, Bo Butterworth, and Karen Bowlin.
The timing of the deal carries its own symmetry. A special anniversary screening is scheduled for August 26 at 5 p.m. at Tahoe Art Haus & Cinema, followed by a filmmaker Q&A. The date falls on the 46th anniversary of the bombing itself — the same calendar slot, nearly half a century on, when the device was rolled into the casino lobby.
Tara Hein-Phillips, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Jolt.film, led the acquisition for the distributor. Financial terms of the rights deal were not disclosed.
North American rights, for context, cover distribution in the United States and Canada — the territory most distributors treat as their primary revenue market. A dual theatrical-and-digital strategy means the film will play cinemas before or alongside its availability on streaming and download platforms, rather than going straight to one outlet.
For a documentary about an event many outside Nevada may not know by name, the anniversary screening at a cinema a short drive from the original site adds a layer of local resonance that festival-and-release campaigns rarely get. The Harvey's bombing remains one of the most audacious extortion attempts in American history, and the Storkels' film brings it to audiences who were not yet born when the dynamite was loaded onto that dolly.
