It hasn’t even been a week since the Reddit Army launched an offensive against major hedge funds on Wall Street by targeting specific, shorted, stocks (AMC and Gamestop) for inflation. As a matter of fact this battle in the stock market is still heavily underway, but that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from identifying a cinematic historical event when they see one, both MGM and Netflix have got the ball rolling on bringing these events to the big screen. This is actually amazing news for most. I had NO clue what was going on in 2008 with the housing crisis until I saw The Big Short, so I vote that every time there’s a major financial crisis or happening around the world that’s not based on common knowledge a movie should be made to explain it to the rest of us.
MGM started moving first, securing the rights to a proposed book by Ben Mezrich, based on these events tentatively called ‘The Antisocial Network’. This is kind of blowing my mind, and is ironically appropriate for media based on the process of “shorting” where nothing has been actually purchased. Think about it, MGM has secured the rights to a book someone said they wanted to write based on events that are still currently happening…gotta love the speed of the 21st century.
Not to be outmaneuvered, Netflix is apparently fleshing out their process even further with a writer and lead already slated. Mark Boal has been possibly tapped to write, his writing credits trend toward a serious take on the events having won Oscars for writing The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. In a possible starring role sits Noah Centrino, a recent Netflix darling (they seem to be building a stable ala The CW lately) who starred in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. I guess what strikes me the most about this news is how one would begin to cast a film where all of the major players haven’t been identified yet in real life. I mean, sure we can make assumptions based on what we know but this is still a rapidly developing story.
One thing is for sure, these will not be the only two pieces of media generated from these events. This is a David vs Goliath story happening at the exact time in history where it could have the most impact. People are sick to death of the status quo and it has become completely apparent that most of the issues are sourced at the mega-rich, so hearing that a bunch of regular folks behind their keyboards got rich while tanking some of these Billionaire hedge fund folks is a rallying cry at a minimum!
