‘Dumb Money’ Director Craig Gillespie Experienced The GameStop Stock Short Squeeze Firsthand

Forbes Business Hollywood & Entertainment ‘Dumb Money’ Director Craig Gillespie Experienced The GameStop Stock Short Squeeze Firsthand Simon Thompson Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Simon is a producer (TV & Digital) and film & entertainment journalist Following Sep 29, 2023, 05:30pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin ‘Dumb Money’ director Craig Gillespie at the Sony Pictures presentation during CinemaCon at The . .

. [+] Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in April 2023. WireImage Director Craig Gillespie put his money where his mouth is regarding the new movie Dumb Money , aka the GameStop GME stocks film.

The filmmaker, also known for I, Tonya and Cruella , took the plunge and invested. “I did,” he confirmed with a laugh, “And I timed it perfectly wrong. ” He got the bug and jumped on the bandwagon because his son was really into what was happening.

“As you know, they put the freeze on, and the stock cratered. Then this second round started to happen, and he said, ‘Dad, we’re going to get another option, but I don’t recommend it. It’s highly volatile.

It’s really chaotic right now. ‘ He took some of his winnings and bought another option,” he continued. “I was like, ‘I’m going to do it.

I’m going to go for it. ‘ I’d been listening and following all this craziness for three months, but then three or four days later, I was like, ‘How are we doing?’ Zero. We lost it all.

I’m glad we got to partake in it even though it didn’t end well. ” Dumb Money , which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has already enjoyed a limited theatrical release that has grossed $4. 3 million, is based on the true story of regular people buying stock in Gamestop and turning it into the world’s hottest business, causing chaos on Wall Street.

The movement was driven via a Reddit group called WallStreetBets and a YouTuber called Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty. Paul Dano plays Gill, supported by an inspired ensemble cast that includes Pete Davidson, Vincent D’Onofrio, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, and Seth Rogen. The events that inspired Dumb Money and the book The Antisocial Network, which it is based on, took place in January 2021.

Several documentaries have also been about what happened, including Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga . MORE FOR YOU Chinese Steel Tycoon Du Shuanghua To Buy Singapore Shopping Mall For $666 Million Stocks Suffer Worst Quarter Of 2023 As Good Vibes Dry Out Anheuser-Busch Stock Notches 2nd-Best Day Of 2023—Analysts Say Stock Will Climb Despite Bud Light Backlash “Covid was this profound moment that we had with humanity that none of us had experienced previously. There was the real sense of frustration, people losing their jobs, losing loved ones, small businesses shutting down, and this real disparity of wealth was front and center,” Gillespie explained.

“You also had the other thing going on where there were no sports, so people were looking for ways to gamble. All of these things came together. ” While the director admits there were “different motivations from different groups,” they all found “a common cause in this frustration at the time,” especially regarding wealth disparity.

“It was a way that they could stick it to these one percenters, or the point one percent in this case, and hit them where it hurts, which is their wallet, and simultaneously make money. It was a win-win with a very complicated moral quandary going on as well. ” (Left to right) America Ferrera as Jenny and Anthony Ramos as Marcus in ‘Dumb Money.

‘ Sony Pictures That quandary was whether to hold on and stick it to the system or to take the big money made in a time of need and run. “Part of the film’s intensity is that the stakes for them could be life-changing, and it’s different for each character,” the director said. “There are some who just don’t care and just want to hit back at the one percent because they’re happy to fall on their sword and lose the money.

There are also characters like the one played by America Ferrera; She’s a nurse who is very much about the cause and wants to be heard. She’s up a half a million dollars at one point, and she’s a nurse, and that money would change her life profoundly. ” “It’s this idea of when she gives up on the messaging and the cause and decide to cash out? It’s very complicated and conflicting emotionally.

She represents a demographic that we wanted to represent. Ultimately, she loses it all, and it’s heartbreaking. The stakes are incredibly intense.

That $500,000 means more to her than the $6. 8 billion to the hedge fund guy. ” There are the inevitable comparisons between Dumb Money and movies like The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street .

However, there are other films Gillespie feels share more DNA. “Interestingly, this is very much from the outside looking in, and that’s what attracted me. It’s about the individual who feels marginalized, the underdog, and that community coming in and holding the industry accountable,” he mused.

“We were looking at movies like Moneyball where this outside thinking comes in and tries to uproot the system. With The Social Network, that was more from the pressure cooker side of it and again very much the humanity of it. He starts as an outsider, so there are more of the touchstones for this film.

” Gillespie added, “Yes, Dumb Money is about stocks and trading and stuff, but it’s to me a much larger story than that. ” (Left to right) Actor Paul Dano and director Craig Gillespie at the Sony Pictures Entertainment . .

. [+] presentation of ‘Dumb Money’ during CinemaCon at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. AFP via Getty Images When putting the film together, the director knew where he wanted to start with casting, with the YouTuber Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, at the center of it.

“Before I could even figure out the rest of the cast at all, it was about who that guy was,” he said. “I was intrigued with Paul Dano because he had recently done The Batman and The Fabelmans . He’s a master craftsman and an incredibly sophisticated actor and layered with what he can do.

He’s got such range. Looking at all the videos we had of the guy Keith Gill, I was trying to capture his essence and looking for what that was. I did some homework on Paul, and my son pointed out that I needed to watch Swiss Army Man .

” Gillespie loved “the exuberance” Dano had in the film, including “the naivety and joy. ” “There were so many attributes that apply to Keith Gill’s videos that he posted. I was immediately like, ‘He’s perfect.

He could absolutely do this. ‘ The beautiful thing about Paul is that when he did sign on, which was thrilling, he approached it with such intelligence. He does so much homework.

We would sit down and talk, and I was sure he had watched every video Gill posted. ” “We started to create scenes together. We’d be sitting there and be like, ‘Alright, so what happens when Gill loses $3 million in 24 hours? What’s that scene? What’s the scene when he gets subpoenaed?’ He could fact-check everything and was the gatekeeper in every sense.

” What does Gill make of the movie and Dano’s portrayal? “We don’t know, honestly. We’ve tried to reach out, we tried to do that very early on during production, but Gill truly has stepped away from the public eye, and ultimately, we’ve got to respect that,” he admitted. “The olive branch has been offered, but it’s entirely up to him.

We’re not going to push it. I think what that did for us was put on the added pressure of getting a right. We went back and looked at the videos and ensured that we were honoring what he was saying and doing as much as possible and trying to keep it as accurate as possible.

” Could Gill have snuck into a screening at TIFF or somewhere else during the first parts of the staggered release? “Who knows,” Gillespie laughed. “We’ll see. ” Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn .

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