Two years ago, the infamous GameStop short squeeze allowed armchair investors to stick it to the hedge funds by driving up the stock price to unsustainable highs. Some ordinary investors even made millions off of the stock, while others lost everything they had gained and more when the price came crashing back to Earth. This saga has already been explored in documentaries like GameStop: Rise of the Players. But this fall, Sony will release a dramatic retelling of these events in a film called Dumb Money.
Via Deadline, Sony has set Friday, October 20 as the release date for Dumb Money, which is based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Antisocial Network. It’s described as “a scathing, funny and emotional portrayal of how a loosely affiliated group of amateur investors and internet denizens crushed one of the biggest hedge funds on Wall Street and upended the establishment.”
How did it happen in reality? It’s simple, really. The aforementioned amateur investors realized two things: GameStop stock was undervalued, and they also figured out that they could make the short sellers at various hedge funds lose a lot of money if they drove up the stock price. Short sellers often make arrangements to borrow stocks and temporarily sell them with the inherent promise that they have to buy back the stocks that they borrowed at a later date. Essentially, they’re betting that they can repurchase the stocks at a lower price than they sold them for. When GameStop’s stock price soared, the hedge funds and other professional investors couldn’t easily make good on their obligations. And they lost millions in the process.
Dumb Money has a very impressive cast lined up, including Seth Rogen, Paul Dano, Sebastian Stan, Pete Davidson, Shailene Woodley, Dane DeHaan, Vincent D’Onofrio, Anthony Ramos, America Ferrera, Myah’la Herrold, Nick Offerman, and Talia Ryder. For now, there’s no word about which characters they are playing.
Craig Gillespie (Pam & Tommy) directed Dumb Money from a script by Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum. By placing the film in October, Sony may also be positioning it for an award-season run. But we will find out for sure later this year.
