There’s no shortage of movies already based on real-life, historical incidents surrounding the Stock Market, but everything in the first trailer for Sony’s upcoming Dumb Money film — a biographical comedy-drama covering the events of the GameStop short squeeze — beautifully demonstrates why we have such an appetite for them. Especially when it involves a David vs Goliath-like plot where “the little guy” takes on the Wall Street establishment.
Directed by Craig Gillespie of I, Tonya (2017) and Cruella (2021), Dumb Money is a dramatized retelling of how a bunch of amateur investors on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit intentionally inflated struggling GameStop’s stock to screw over the hedge funds who were shorting it while getting rich at the same time.
A lot of big names are attached to this project. Paul Dano as Keith Gill — otherwise known by his online alias of Roaring Kitty — a former financial analyst who became the driving force behind the movement. Pete Davidson plays Keith’s brother, Kevin Gill, while Seth Rogan and Nick Offerman portray Gabe Plotkin and Kenneth C. Griffin respectively — two of the hedge fund managers wrapped up in the incident. Sebastian Stan, Anthony Ramos, America Ferrera, Shailene Woodley, and Vincent D’Onofrio also feature.
Interestingly, Sony says that Dumb Money is based on The Antisocial Network — a book written by Ben Mezrich on the GameStop short squeeze. That bodes well considering Mezrich also wrote The Accidental Billionaire, which was later adapted for the big screen as The Social Network (2010). There’s currently no age rating assigned to the movie arriving in theaters in the US on September 22nd.
