Jake Coyle
TORONTO – Think of movies about the financial system and your mind is almost sure to go to Gordon Gekko and “Wall Street” or Leonardo DiCaprio’s gyrating Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
When Hollywood takes on Wall Street, it usually heads straight to the C-suite.
The protagonist of “Dumb Money,” though, is an amateur investor who trades out of his basement in Brockton, Massachusetts, with a bandana tied around his head and a Belgian beer in his hand.
This is Keith Gill (played in the film by Paul Dano), also known as Roaring Kitty. In 2021, Gill’s enthusiastic endorsement of GameStop stock helped fuel a viral trading frenzy that rocked Wall Street and humbled the hedge funds that has shorted the brick-andmortar video game company.
Now, Sony Pictures is betting that a David vs. Goliath story that played out on Reddit message boards can be a big-screen attraction, too. Like any investment, it carries some degree of risk.
“Dumb Money,” made for about $30 million, is charging into a still-fresh wound for some Wall Street power players; at least one executive portrayed in the film has reportedly threatened to sue.
The film, which opens in limited release Friday and expands in the next several weeks, will also have to sell itself without its colorful ensemble cast (including Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, America Ferrara, Anthony Ramos and Shailene Woodley) due to the actors strike. And then there’s the inherent challenge of making a dramatic narrative out of a revolution that occurred mainly on computer screens and smartphones.
Yet Craig Gillespie, director of the Tonya Harding black comedy “I, Tonya,” managed to corral a brash online movement into a remarkably rollicking and crowd-pleasing entertainment that’s already stoking some of the same energy that sent GameStop soaring. Ticket prices to the movie’s Toronto International Film Festival were driven past $900 on secondary seller websites.
“As much as it’s a really fun ride, ultimately I wanted to respect the frustration and the outrage that was happening,” Gillespie says.
There are many ironies surrounding “Dumb Money.” It will play in AMC Theaters, which followed GameStop as a meme stock, pumping up its share price at a time when movie theaters were reeling from the pandemic.
“I think we should go to AMC Theaters and we should bring stuff from Bed Bath and Beyond and carry Blackberries,” says Ben Mezrich, author of the book the film’s adapted from, “The