The real Ari Gold at Sundance

Next year’s Sundance Film Festival will feature more than 120 films, and perhaps none inspire more curiosity than Adventures of Power, a feature starring Adrian Grenier that’s…written and directed by Ari Gold? Say whaaa?? Could the Entourage boys be sowing seeds for a bigger stunt than Aquaman, Medellin, and Kanye at Cannes?

Not exactly: Turns out that a filmmaker named Ari Gold does exist, and the Sundance vet is back as the star and director of Power, a full-length feature about a small-town copper miner on a quest to become the world’s best air drummer. Gold first met Grenier around 2000 when they worked on the actor’s documentary Shot in the Dark, and they now play together in the band the Honey Brothers. He also claims that his well-known frustration with agents resulted in the christening of Jeremy Piven’s hotheaded Entourage character. (”The company line is that it’s pure coincidence; but it doesn’t seem plausible to me.”) Still, when Gold wrote the part of Power’s quasi-villain Dallas, he only had eyes for Grenier: ”He’s never asked to do anything other than be good-looking, and he’s very funny and weird.”

As such, the project became one big meta-experience. When Gold broke his arm during a stunt — surely the first air-guitar casualty on record — ”I was denied medical attention” because orthopedists thought they were being pranked and wouldn’t return his calls. But the director says all he can do is persevere. ”The real Ari Golds,” he says, ”are out there fighting for our good name.”