Netflix and a famed film author already optioned movies about GameStop, Reddit and Wall Street
It looks like we’ll be spoiled for choice when it comes to movies about the WallStreetBets / GameStop saga: Deadline is reporting that both MGM and Netflix have plans to make one, before the dust has even settled (via Kotaku and Polygon). If you weren’t paying attention to the stock-spikes, short squeezes, and diamond hands that were going on last week, we have an explainer that should get you caught up on the big picture.
MGM’s version of the movie is set to based as a book that hasn’t yet been written. The author of that book is Ben Mezrich, who wrote The Accidental Billionaires, which was the basis for David Fincher’s 2010 movie The Social Network. Mezrich was apparently inspired by Fincher’s title, as he’s calling his new book The Antisocial Network.
Netflix is trying to get Mark Boal, the screenwriter and a producer on The Hurt Locker and Detroit, to write its adaptation. (Does this mean we could see Kathryn Bigelow directing? Please say yes.) The company is also planning on having To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before star Noah Centineo play a major role. Who he’ll be depicting is anyone’s guess, because the story literally isn’t done unfolding in real life yet.
I can imagine it’s hard to be a movie producer tasked with turning the WallStreetBets story into a movie, because on one hand you want to get it done ASAP so the movie is still topical, but on the other you have to wait until the story is done before you can really start working on it. Even now we’re seeing new developments as WallStreetBets starts to target SPACs (shell companies meant to help private companies easily go public) and silver commodities. It would be a tragedy if a movie didn’t include a scene of a Redditor having to take delivery of 300 bars of silver.
There’s also the question of how big a role trading platform Robinhood will play in the movies. The platform created a firestorm of controversy and user anger when it halted the buying of WallStreetBets’s favorite stocks last week, but Forbes reports that the app is still getting a million downloads a day. It’s something that would be hard to put into a movie, but is obviously a big part of the story.
Neither movie has a release date yet (again, because it’s hard to tell when this whole thing will be over), or much talent attached to speak of, but I’m excited to see how they turn out. Hopefully one of these adaptations could be like The Big Short, staring Michael Cera as u/DeepFuckingValue, and, if I’m really dreaming here, maybe they’ll both be released the same week like Netflix and Hulu’s competing Fyre Festival documentaries. Such weirdness would only be fitting for the absolute roller coaster that the GameStop stock ride has been, and will likely continue to be.
It looks like we’ll be spoiled for choice when it comes to movies about the WallStreetBets / GameStop saga: Deadline is reporting that both MGM and Netflix have plans to make one, before the dust has even settled (via Kotaku and Polygon). If you weren’t paying attention to the stock-spikes,…
