Gamestop shares scandal getting the movie treatment

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The story of how Reddit investors took on Wall Street over Gamestop shares is heading to the movies.

In what may be one of the speediest film announcements ever, a movie has been announced based on a book that won’t even be auctioned to publishers until later this month, which in turn is focused on events that only unfolded last week.

Yep, the wheels are certainly  turning quickly on this one.

According to Deadline, MGM has won the rights to adapt Ben Mezrich’s The Antisocial Network, which promises to tell the story of how a group of Reddit users managed to throw Wall Street’s established stock investors into a state of panic, to the point where one trading app (whose name was in a lot of headlines last week) caused a huge controversy by suspending trading on certain stocks. In particular, the US video game store, Gamestop.

Although on the surface it seems like an incredibly quick timeframe to put together a deal for a story which is still unfolding in the news right now, take a closer look at the people involved and it begins to make sense. Ben Mezrich, who has announced the book upon which the film will be based, is the author of The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale Of Sex, Money, Genius And Betrayal. That particular story would go on to be adapted by Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher into 2010’s The Social Network, one of the decade’s best films, which was not only a critical success but made a lot of money too.

Also involved as executive producers are Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, whose involvement in the founding of Facebook was chronicled in The Social Network. 

MGM has picked up the rights, with Aaron Ryder – co-founder of FilmNation – producing. Mezrich also has several other of his books being adapted too, including Bitcoin Billionaires, which looks into the meteoric rise of the cryptocurrency, which has been picked up by Amblin.

It’ll be a while before we see Mezrich’s book appear, let alone the film, but the announcement certainly adds another interesting wrinkle to the events playing out on Wall Street, where Gamestop’s stock (as well as other companies such as Blackberry and AMC) has risen into the stratosphere, thanks to the collective investiture of a group of Reddit users who have rocked the very foundations of America’s financial systems.

The subject seems perfect too for Mezrich, who will get to explore another tale of young, digital-savvy upstarts upsetting the wealthy establishment. It was a formula that worked perfectly in The Social Network, which is no doubt why MGM has acted so quickly to secure the rights for this project. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.

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