Non-fiction book now a provocative film

MANILA, Philippines – Based on the true story and best-selling book by Michael Lewis (The Blind Side, Moneyball), Paramount Pictures presents the sardonic comedy The Big Short directed by Adam Mckay (Step Brothers) and starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt.

In the film, when four outsiders saw what the big banks, media and government refused to, the global collapse of the economy, they had an idea: The Big Short. Their bold investment leads them into the dark underbelly of modern banking where they must question everyone and everything.

Five years ago, when director McKay read The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, he became fascinated with a farce of a different kind. Intrigued by the mixture of comedy, drama and outright tragedy in Lewis’ brilliant behind-the-scenes look at the lead-up to the global economic meltdown, McKay yearned to take a break from absurdist comedies and bring The Big Short to the big screen.

Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment, had in fact partnered with Paramount Pictures to develop The Big Short as a motion picture. Producer Jeremy Kleiner found striking similarities between the author’s approach to baseball and Wall Street within author Michael Lewis’ book Money Ball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.

The book that got McKay and Plan B so excited about making a film about the events leading to the banking crisis comes from the mind of master non-fiction storyteller Lewis. After working at a big Wall Street bank himself in the ’80s, Lewis wrote the bestseller Liar’s Poker, a funny and revealing look at the lucrative and deceptive world of bond trading. The author had no plans for a follow-up until the 2008 financial collapse.

(Opening in theaters this month, The Big Short is distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.)