Dumb Money | Deadline Studio at TIFF - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - This story at its core is about a community

00:09 that came together online, 8 million people,

00:11 and that wanted to have a voice,

00:13 a lot of them with the commentary

00:15 about the wealth disparity going on in this country,

00:18 so many issues, as well as really letting

00:22 Wall Street know how they feel.

00:24 To be able to share that as a community in a theater

00:28 is just a joy.

00:29 To be able to have that interaction with everybody

00:33 and walk out of that theater with that concern

00:38 and outrage that we were trying to garner in this film

00:41 and experience it as a group

00:43 is what we could only have hoped for.

00:45 And there's very few places actually

00:47 that would put this movie in a theater.

00:49 And Sony, we were lucky enough to have come on board.

00:52 - The funny thing is we started out with MGM.

00:55 That's the studio that initially bought the book.

00:58 But then MGM was bought by Amazon

01:00 and everything kind of slowed down

01:02 and we had to find a new home for the movie.

01:04 And Teddy's company, Black Bear, came on board

01:08 and they financed the film.

01:09 So this movie was made independent,

01:11 which is something I feel like

01:12 is the spirit of the movie anyway.

01:14 So once the movie came together

01:16 and we started pre-production,

01:18 that's when Sony came on board

01:19 and they've been just excellent partners.

01:21 It was all of our intention to try to find a home

01:24 for this movie that was theatrical.

01:26 We felt you're right.

01:28 There are not a lot of movies like this

01:30 and quite frankly, there are not enough movies like this.

01:32 I feel like this is a movie, an underserved audience

01:35 and people wanna see quality material

01:38 and they wanna see things that are fun, entertaining,

01:40 not just feeling like medicine.

01:42 This movie, that should do that.

01:43 - Every once in a while,

01:45 an incredible opportunity drops into your lap.

01:47 Lauren and Rebecca had developed

01:50 what I thought was an absolutely amazing screenplay.

01:53 Craig Gillespie, I think,

01:54 is one of the most exciting directors working today.

01:57 "I, Tonya" was one of my favorite movies ever.

02:00 The mix of experiential, comedic, irreverent and human,

02:05 I think is sort of, those are touchstones to his work

02:09 and this film was a ride

02:12 and it was very clear that it was gonna be

02:14 highly entertaining, incredibly thrilling, really funny,

02:19 but that underneath it, there was real substance to it,

02:23 real heart, real humanity and a David and Goliath look

02:27 at everyday Americans or everyday people really saying,

02:32 "I don't have a place in the system, but you know what?

02:36 Technology, social media,

02:38 we've somehow found a way to find each other

02:41 and we're gonna stick it to the man

02:43 and we're not gonna stop until we've found a place

02:46 in this brave new order."

02:48 So for me, this was not only a no-brainer,

02:53 but an event theatrically

02:55 that so many people would respond to,

02:58 whether or not you're interested in GameStop,

03:01 whether you're interested in Wall Street,

03:04 this is a story for everyday people

03:06 who finally found a voice.

03:08 - Teddy is very modest.

03:11 He did save this movie and he believed in it

03:13 when no one else did and it's a movie that is edgy,

03:16 it takes on Wall Street, it takes on billionaires,

03:19 it talks about how the system is rigged on Wall Street.

03:23 We know it's happening in Hollywood as well.

03:25 We are producers, but we're also the writers of the film

03:27 and we're proud that our union is fighting

03:29 the same fight for transparency.

03:31 And it's also a film that celebrates collective action,

03:35 what happens when people kind of come together

03:36 and can change the world.

03:38 So we're very, very excited that it's gonna be in a theater,

03:40 which is another collective place

03:43 where people come together.

03:44 - I mean, this movie is about,

03:46 it's born of the pandemic era,

03:49 a time when people were isolated and alone

03:51 and looking at the systems in our country

03:54 and around the world and seeing

03:56 that they are profoundly broken,

03:58 seeing the heightened, profound inequalities,

04:01 in this case in Wall Street,

04:03 but the same thing is happening right now in Hollywood

04:05 and finding that it's very easy to feel despondent

04:09 and to feel like things are hopeless,

04:11 but there is hope actually.

04:13 And this is a story of people coming together,

04:15 the power of a collective voice,

04:17 and frankly, of holding the line,

04:19 of sticking to your guns.

04:20 And even though it's painful standing by what's right,

04:25 that is exactly what our union is doing.

04:26 It's exactly what SAG is doing

04:28 and it's what makes the story so triumphant

04:30 and so inspiring.

04:31 - And also it makes it emotional.

04:32 I mean, it's too narrow lens to look at this film

04:35 and say it's about people who made money or lost money

04:38 and look at it in terms of numbers.

04:39 It's actually about people

04:40 who wanted to be part of something.

04:42 And in many ways, there's no price tag on that in our world.

04:46 We reached out many times

04:47 and invited him and his family to be a part of this process.

04:49 They're extremely private.

04:51 And so we wanted to respect that.

04:53 - I think one of the cool things,

04:54 there are a lot of cool things about Keith Gill,

04:57 but typically when you see a populist movement

05:00 come up online,

05:00 very often it's co-opted by a classic narcissist,

05:03 someone who's in it for the fame or for the money.

05:06 This guy is in it for neither.

05:08 He is a brilliant, committed person of great conviction

05:12 and passion.

05:13 And he watched as he lost $15 million a day

05:16 and he did not sell.

05:17 He became a reluctant leader,

05:19 truly a kind of hero figure,

05:21 and he didn't cash in and turn it into a big celebrity.

05:25 He has made a choice to live a very private life.

05:28 And ultimately, we'd love to get to know him better.

05:31 We hope he likes the movie,

05:32 but we absolutely respect that choice.

05:35 - We drove to Brockton to visit his parents

05:37 and invite them to watch the film

05:39 in a very private way or a public way.

05:41 So we've invited them in,

05:42 but also wanted to let them live their private lives.

05:46 We have a long-term fascination

05:48 with sort of online populist movements.

05:50 And we wrote a film about politics

05:53 that actually Seth Rogen was directing and starring in

05:55 that didn't get made,

05:56 but we were hoping that Craig would direct that film

05:58 at some point.

05:59 - The thing about--

06:00 - He bakes for it.

06:00 - The thing about--

06:01 - He said no.

06:02 (laughing)

06:03 - The thing about populism is that it is one of the most,

06:06 if not the most important forces shaping our world.

06:08 It is also one of the least cinematic

06:11 because all of the passions that drive that movie

06:13 don't really turn into much more

06:15 than people sitting at a computer visually.

06:18 So as we were crafting this screenplay with Aaron's guidance

06:21 we wanted the movie to play like a bat out of hell,

06:25 just to move fast, to feel propulsive and energetic,

06:28 exactly the way social media is

06:30 and the way this movement went.

06:31 And the only guy who could do it is Craig.

06:33 I mean, no one does energy the way he does.

06:35 - We also wanted the film to be an ensemble.

06:37 I mean, this is a movement.

06:38 It's not just the story of one person.

06:40 You know, it could have been like the Keith Gill biopic

06:43 but it's really about a lot of people

06:45 and Craig is the only director who could handle

06:48 12 characters and 12 different settings.

06:51 - And who can find the depth and humanity in characters

06:55 even when they don't have a huge amount of screen time.

06:57 We didn't have a ton of time

06:58 with each member of our ensemble

07:00 and Craig managed to pull out

07:01 really profound performances from all of them.

07:03 - And do it in 31 days.

07:05 - I can't even interrupt this.

07:06 You guys are all very kind.

07:07 - He did not cut for 31 days.

07:09 - Enjoy it while it lasts, Gillespie.

07:11 - You guys are filming, right?

07:13 - Craig came in and made that great point

07:15 that we needed a big ending to this film.

07:17 - Yeah, I mean, we're hearing a lot of comparisons

07:19 that we're happy to hear because we really admire

07:21 these great films of the finance world like "The Big Short"

07:25 but also a big inspiration for us

07:27 in addition to the films of Capra

07:28 which people have pointed to

07:30 in terms of their populist message.

07:32 But our classic sports movies,

07:34 I mean, this is about a ragtag band of outsiders

07:37 who came together behind a charismatic leader

07:40 and it climaxes in a championship game.

07:43 And we really did that with Craig.

07:45 We built that third act together under his direction

07:48 of bringing our characters all together

07:51 for one great face-off.

07:52 - It was, I just, ironically,

07:56 we were working on another script together.

07:57 I love working with these guys, Rebecca and Lauren.

08:00 They do such a beautiful job of bringing humanity

08:04 and creating these stories that can be very complicated

08:07 on the surface and layering them in a way

08:09 that's propulsive as well.

08:11 Like when I, we were working on a film

08:13 that was almost about to go.

08:15 So daily seeing each other

08:17 and really in the grind of that.

08:19 And we kept talking about this project

08:21 'cause I knew they were writing it.

08:22 I had lived it with my son going through it.

08:25 So I was very interested in it.

08:27 But we were two months out from shooting something.

08:29 It suddenly imploded the next day.

08:32 The script turns off.

08:33 - You can laugh now.

08:34 (laughing)

08:35 You don't know what you want is the lesson.

08:37 - And I got to read it.

08:38 And it was everything I could have hoped for.

08:41 It's like the energy in it,

08:42 the complicated storylines all crafted together.

08:45 It just meshed beautifully.

08:47 And really the only thing that we were missing

08:49 was that congressional hearing.

08:50 But of course, the ripple effect of putting that in,

08:53 you have to have scenes that build to that.

08:55 But what I love, I like to work fast and instinctively.

08:59 And these guys are very much like that.

09:01 So it's like I can turn to them.

09:03 And in that very short prep that we had,

09:06 working with Paul, we would talk about

09:09 what are these scenes gonna be?

09:10 What do we need here?

09:11 And I'd call him and be like,

09:12 "Okay, we need a scene with the family.

09:13 "We need a scene when they tell the family it's 22 million.

09:16 "We need a scene when he gets subpoenaed.

09:17 "We need a scene when he's lost $30 million."

09:20 And it's like within two days,

09:21 they'd be turning it around and sending it back.

09:24 And that kind of energy and that sort of creativity

09:27 that we conspire with each other

09:28 is something I've never had before.

09:30 (upbeat music)

09:33 [Music]

Dumb Money | Deadline Studio at TIFF

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