Financial crisis book The Big Short to be made into movie with Brad Pitt, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling on board
One of the bestselling books about the financial crisis, The Big Short, is to get the Hollywood treatment with a string of A-listers on board.
While the worst of the financial crisis is over (but full economic recovery debatable), the appetite of cinema-goers to linger on the drama, which began unfolding in 2007, is still there. That’s what Brad Pitt and Paramount think, anyway.
The star’s film company Plan B is working on an adaptation of Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, the New York Times bestseller about the build up to the housing and credit crisis in the 2000s which lead to the crash, according to Variety.
Lewis, a former trader and journalist already has previous form with Liars Poker, a book about his time on Wall Street in the 80s, and the business of baseball book Moneyball, later made into a movie produced by and starring Pitt.
The actor will be on board again as producer of The Big Short while Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling are in the frame to star in the adaption which has yet to start production.
Like Lewis’ book, released in 2010, The Big Short isn't the first film to delve into the depths of the financial crisis.
The subject has so far been covered in more of a documentary style rather than drama, with Matt Damon-narrated Inside Job scooping a Best Documentary Oscar in 2010. At the other extreme, the fictional take of blockbuster Wall Street sequel Money Never Sleeps demonstrates the two extremes of the financial crisis film genre.
Based on previous form, the City can expect something somewhere, and more pleasingly, in the centre of these two films from The Big Short.