EXCLUSIVE: As Wall Street developments unfold in real time in David V Goliath’s battle between hedge funds and social media-fueled day traders who sent GameStop stocks shooting 135% in a single day, a bull market is moving developing for projects that narrate this unprecedented episode its major implications.
Deadline learned that Netflix is in talks to make an untitled film that Mark Boal is in talks to write. He’s the Oscar-winning screenwriter for The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Noah Centineo will be hired to play an important role – Centineo starred in the Netflix movie For all the boys I’ve loved before, completed the one directed by Jackie Chan The diary and will play Atom Smasher alongside Dwayne Johnson in the film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra Black Adam. Scott Galloway, NYU activist / journalist and professor and a technology expert who works on the popular Pivot podcast, is in negotiations to consult the script.
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Makeready founder / CEO Brad Weston will produce the film with Nick Styne from Definition Entertainment, with Mark Sourian on board as executive producer.
This closely follows the bore of last night’s Deadline that MGM acquired in bidding for a Ben Mezrich book proposal on the GameStop deal. His previous books include The Accidential Billionaires, that has become a pillar of The social network.
Netflix declined to comment on the Mark Boal project, but sources said the intention is to use the GameStop episode as a specific way to illuminate the phenomenon of how social media leveled the playing field and allowed the masses to challenge status guardians. quo, for good and for bad. Examples range from the peak of GameStop, AMC and other previously overdue stocks that are subject to the short sale maneuvers of billions of dollars of hedge funds to the spread on social media of unfounded allegations of electoral fraud carried by websites. conservative social media and Trump Tweets who incited right-wing extremists to invade the Capitol while President Biden’s election was being certified, leading to the deaths of five people.
The waves of Reddit’s rebellion hit the heart of some hedge funds in a way reminiscent of the package of subprime mortgages fueled by the greed that caused the 2008 financial meltdown captured in the Oscar winner The Big Short, that New Regency co-financed while Weston ran that production company. This film will certainly be a model for the dissection of GameStop, and sources said there are several potential rival projects mobilizing to tell the story.
The general rule of thumb when competitive designs arise is that the first one in production is usually the only one done. Netflix takes your photos quickly and Boal looks ideal for a real-time workout. He and director Kathryn Bigelow were working on a film about an unsuccessful hunt for Osama Bin Laden, but by the time President Barack Obama announced that 9/11 brain was killed by Navy SEALs, they quickly transformed the history of the hunt in the Best Picture indicated Zero Dark Thirty. The response time on that pivot was incredibly fast.
The drama of rising GameStop shares continues to take place in today’s trading. The phenomenon was led by Kevin Gill, who called on Reddit users to rebel against hedge funds that were betting heavily against virtual video game retailer GameStop. Although it fluctuates daily, a $ 53,000 investment in GameStop that he made in 2019 turned into a position of almost $ 48 million, according to his posts on Reddit. Gill has not yet sold the rights to his life. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a knock at his Hollywood door, but this drama is playing out so publicly in real time that it’s unclear how vital rights will be when telling this story on the screen.
Boal and Galloway are represented by WME, Centineo by CAA and Definition Entertainment.