Everything
Words: Valentina Carrizo
In the spirit of the revolutionary ardour that has so far set the 2020’s apart from recent decades, Hollywood is bringing you a cinematographic depiction of the historical moments we are living through today. If the pace at which this is all moving doesn’t put you off any attempt to keep up with reading books before the movies are released, I don’t know what will.
The world’s largest retail gaming company, GameStop, like many retailers hung on throughout 2020 by the skin of their teeth. In April, its shares were priced at US$3 and were expected to fall. That was until a group of cunning amateur investors on popular forum site Reddit swooped in, feathered hat and all, to be the Robin Hoods of the modern-day, outsmarting the Hedge Fund bigwigs and making a few dollars for themselves. Ironically, the very trading app they used to do this (which subsequently put a freeze on all rookie users) was RobinHood.
Smells like Hollywood fodder to me. If over the past week you said the words “they should make a movie about this” more to yourself while making your morning coffee than to anyone else, then you’re probably going to kick yourself when I tell you this.
MGM studios have just secured the movie rights to the as-yet-to-be-written book about the GameStop fiasco ‘The Antisocial Network’ to be penned by Ben Mezrich. That’s right, the book, the movie will be based on is yet to be written but the money’s been snapped up already. If only you had directed your early morning platitude towards a person rather than the coffee mug…
Ben Mezrich is the author of “The Accidental Billionaires” which charts the founding of FaceBook and then led to the 2010 film “The Social Network.” Perhaps more significantly than an Academy Award, this film gained cult status. Mezrich also penned “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions” which also received a movie adaptation in the 2008 film “21.”
I was born to write this one. I’ve got more PowerUp Rewards than any journalist on Wall Street. I doubt Michael Lewis has ever even set foot in a GameStop. 🙂
— Ben Mezrich (@benmezrich) January 28, 2021
Almost simultaneously, MGM (the one with the roaring lion at the start) picked up the deal and hey presto, we’re getting a movie. Deadline broke the news that Mezrich pitched the deal at the end of last week and by Friday night the rights were secured.
Mezrich then went on to tweet “The last scene in the movie is definitely @elonmusk sitting in the cockpit of a rocket ship tweeting ‘Gamestonk!’” in reference to Musk’s meme-worthy tweet last Wednesday. If this is anything to go by we may be in for another Academy Award winner!
The film is set to be produced by Aaron Ryder, and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss whose combined resumes include blockbusters such as Arrival, The Founder, The Prestige, Memento, and Pieces of a Woman.
The GameStop story is still unfolding which leaves Mezrich with the unenviable task of picking apart the stocks as it happens and fashioning the narrative into something the lay and confused among us can enjoy.
Though something that began as an exercise in eating the rich is now lining the pockets of more rich people, at least school students sitting in history class in 2070 will have a film to help them through the drudgery of mid-terms.
