Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Yeow it up, everybody, rowing kiddy here, I'm going to
Speaker 2: pick a stock and talk about why I think it's interesting,
Speaker 2: and that stock is Game Stop.
Speaker 3: Retail traders have hooked into the Game Stop. I think
Speaker 3: they think it's a good investment.
Speaker 1: It looks like there's one guy driving all the buying.
Speaker 4: Who is.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Well, art imitating life once again this week, opening nationally today,
Speaker 2: Dumb Money, the real life story brought to the big
Speaker 2: screen of the working class redditors who became investors during
Speaker 2: the pandemic making and I'm guess I'm losing some money
Speaker 2: along the way as well, and perhaps even more interestingly
Speaker 2: and shockingly, turning Wall.
Speaker 1: Street upside down. Jess.
Speaker 2: We were living this day to day as it played
Speaker 2: out during the pandemic, especially when.
Speaker 4: You think of GME for GameStop, AMC, all these names
Speaker 4: that come to mind, that we're just taking off in
Speaker 4: the beginning of twenty one, right.
Speaker 1: Out of nowhere, and like it was like we gone
Speaker 1: here fundamentals. Who cares out the window?
Speaker 2: All right, So let's get to it. Because Aaron Ryder
Speaker 2: is producer of Dumb Money. As we said, this movie
Speaker 2: opening nationally today. He joins us on Zoom in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: aeron No Stranger to the Big Screen.
Speaker 1: Among other things.
Speaker 2: He of course did producer Christopher Nolan's Memento, so really
Speaker 2: good to have him here.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome erin big day, big movie.
Speaker 2: We all lived it, So we've all been talking about
Speaker 2: a big time in the newsroom. Looking at your trailer,
Speaker 2: there's a word in it that we sometimes say in
Speaker 2: the newsroom, but it was said a lot in the
Speaker 2: trailer because it was a crazy time. What was the
Speaker 2: spark catalyst, media headline conversation that got your attention, made
Speaker 2: you want to do a movie about this?
Speaker 5: Well, first off, thanks for having me. Good to talk
Speaker 5: to you guys. So I was in Montreal up in
Speaker 5: quarantine when this was all going down in January twenty
Speaker 5: twenty one. Back then it was before the vaccines, as
Speaker 5: you probably remember, and when you went from the United
Speaker 5: States to Canada you had to do a fourteen day
Speaker 5: state mandated quarantine. So I was pretty much glued to
Speaker 5: the internet just hearing all these headlines and seeing everything
Speaker 5: that was going down, and I could not escape all
Speaker 5: of this news about the store that I kind of
Speaker 5: knew about when you go to the mall and why
Speaker 5: it's stock was going through the roof, and it was
Speaker 5: you know, you guys were covering it. It was everywhere,
Speaker 5: and so it was hard to ignore it.
Speaker 2: So how do you take something that right? It was
Speaker 2: in our face and all of us were trying to
Speaker 2: make sense of it. So how do you say, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's really interesting and it's a conversation with your buddies,
Speaker 2: versus I want to do something more with it, so
Speaker 2: take us there.
Speaker 5: Well, I got this great phone call from a guy
Speaker 5: named Kevin Lark, who happened to own the studio that
Speaker 5: I have a deal with or how to deal with
Speaker 5: at the time, and he basically was like, look, I
Speaker 5: think there's a movie here. And the amazing thing about this,
Speaker 5: you know, not just because it was in the headlines.
Speaker 5: Not every headline will make a great movie, but there
Speaker 5: was this great David versus Goliath theme woven throughout this.
Speaker 3: And you know, it.
Speaker 5: Wasn't just me or Kevin or anyone else that thought
Speaker 5: there could be a movie here. Half of Hollywood was
Speaker 5: chasing the story, thinking that it could be a great
Speaker 5: idea for film, and so it became a real race
Speaker 5: to try to get the rights to a book or
Speaker 5: a podcast to serve as the basis for that story.
Speaker 2: You also, from what I understand, track down Ben Mezrich's
Speaker 2: book Dumb Money Adventures of a Day Trader, which is
Speaker 2: what the film is based on.
Speaker 1: So I'm just get us there, like, how did that?
Speaker 1: Did you reach out or no?
Speaker 4: Ben?
Speaker 3: It was kind of an amazing moment.
Speaker 5: You know, I'd heard this rumor that Ben who had
Speaker 5: written you know, he's covered so many of these things
Speaker 5: in his career. He has written books on so many
Speaker 5: great topics that've been turned into great movies, including Social Network,
Speaker 5: And so I heard that Ben had a book proposal
Speaker 5: and everyone was after it. So I kind of found
Speaker 5: my way into the heart of his agent and convinced
Speaker 5: him to get me a copy of the seven page
Speaker 5: book proposal that he was currently writing on the on
Speaker 5: the Phinalen and that we were all watching. So I
Speaker 5: heard about it, and you know, and did what us
Speaker 5: producers do. We chased material and good ideas and and
Speaker 5: got this book proposal, and you know, it was all
Speaker 5: kind of there. You could feel how you could easily
Speaker 5: turn the story into a narrative for a film that
Speaker 5: would capture an audience. So that was getting that thing
Speaker 5: and working with Ben who could not have been a
Speaker 5: better you know, architect of a story like this.
Speaker 1: You know, thank you Wall Street.
Speaker 2: Right, it just kind of continues to give and give,
Speaker 2: whether it's the Great Financial Crisis, whether it's tech bubbles,
Speaker 2: whether it's the creation of some incredible companies. Like there's
Speaker 2: just unbelievable stories. Having said that, like when you look
Speaker 2: at something like what happened during this meme stock Eras,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stories in it. There's, you know,
Speaker 2: just the trading element. There's the individuals who were involved
Speaker 2: who were not the normal people Aaron that we here
Speaker 2: at Bloomberg typically write about.
Speaker 3: No, it was your one hundred percent right.
Speaker 5: It was like in this moment, as we were all
Speaker 5: trapped in our homes, maybe with a little bit more
Speaker 5: money from the stimulus check that you got, and we
Speaker 5: were glued to you know, we did not have the
Speaker 5: connectivity to our friends or a family, we began to
Speaker 5: form communities online and I feel like this moment was
Speaker 5: like the moment that Wall Street was gamified and some
Speaker 5: and in some ways democratized, where people that normally hadn't
Speaker 5: been investing on Wall Street and paying attention to these
Speaker 5: sort of things, they gathered around this movement and an
Speaker 5: army gathered, and I feel like this was the first
Speaker 5: time that we saw that, and Wall Street felt the
Speaker 5: impact of that, that army that gathered.
Speaker 2: How did you think about, like, what the stories you
Speaker 2: wanted to tell specifically, right, because it's really fun to
Speaker 2: look at the trailer and I was thinking about you know,
Speaker 2: Ken Griffin and you know others that are certainly individuals
Speaker 2: that we talk about all the time here, Steve Cohen,
Speaker 2: Gabe Plotkin.
Speaker 1: So there's you know, the establishment side of it.
Speaker 2: Then there's the redditors in terms of you know, these people,
Speaker 2: their worlds.
Speaker 1: Were changing dramatically just.
Speaker 2: As you approach this project, What were the stories you
Speaker 2: wanted to make sure you got out there?
Speaker 3: Well, it's a great question.
Speaker 5: You know, we really wanted to make this movie about
Speaker 5: it for those people that were on the Reddit boards,
Speaker 5: the people that were involved in this and got involved,
Speaker 5: And you.
Speaker 3: Know, it starts with Keith Gill Roaring Kitty.
Speaker 5: He was in large part the face of this movement
Speaker 5: and the person that we all kind of identified with
Speaker 5: the game stuff phenomena, so you knew he had to
Speaker 5: be a you know, the focal point of a lot
Speaker 5: of the story and any very much he is. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's where it all kind of started. So and then
Speaker 5: it was really Ben's book and the research that he did,
Speaker 5: and Lauren and Rebecca are two screenwriters who were able
Speaker 5: to kind of do a bunch of research and find
Speaker 5: these real people who went through this experience, and there's
Speaker 5: so many The hard part was was kind of discerning
Speaker 5: the people that were involved with us and finding there's
Speaker 5: really great stories that had a satisfying ending to him
Speaker 5: or had a little bit of tragedy to him, with
Speaker 5: the things that would make a good movie. You know,
Speaker 5: we weren't making a documentary here. What we're trying to
Speaker 5: do is make something that's that shows this moment in
Speaker 5: time that we all lived through. But it was actually
Speaker 5: really a fun moment because we'd never seen anything like
Speaker 5: this before.
Speaker 2: I'm curious who you talked to? I remember talking to
Speaker 2: Oliver Stone about Wall Street and then.
Speaker 1: The sequel of like who did You talk To?
Speaker 2: To get the feel in the same thing with Billions,
Speaker 2: Like we've done a panel here at Bloomberg and the
Speaker 2: guys like who did you because they really did talk to,
Speaker 2: you know, folks on Wall Street really to kind of
Speaker 2: get the feel and make sure.
Speaker 1: They were accurate. Who did you talk to in making this?
Speaker 3: Well? You know, look, there's so much stuff that's out
Speaker 3: there that true right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's so much stuff that you can learn and
Speaker 5: there's so many things in the headlines because everybody was
Speaker 5: talking about this, and when you go see the movie,
Speaker 5: it's a very easy.
Speaker 3: Film to understand.
Speaker 5: You do not have to be an investor in Wall
Speaker 5: Street to understand this movie, nor do you have to
Speaker 5: be some sort of economics major to understand what was
Speaker 5: going on here. It's a movie for the everyman, and
Speaker 5: that's really important in the construction of it. We didn't
Speaker 5: want to be, you know, weighing this down with your
Speaker 5: arguing about you know, the economy or jargon about like
Speaker 5: investing in that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: We're trying to make it for and every man.
Speaker 5: So we took that approach, and so in our research
Speaker 5: it was really focusing on the everyday people and how
Speaker 5: they look at the at investing and how they look
Speaker 5: at the stock market and how they maybe even see
Speaker 5: that the system made very well.
Speaker 3: Be ripped, Aaron.
Speaker 2: I was wondering when you were, you know, certainly reading
Speaker 2: the headlines like the rest of us.
Speaker 1: Did you did you trade in any of these?
Speaker 2: Did you actually participate in any of this in terms
Speaker 2: of the market trade.
Speaker 3: It's really funny actually, because.
Speaker 1: I had You're going to say, yes, aren't you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, I totally am. You know, I actually got
Speaker 5: my Robinhood account. I wanted to understand how it worked
Speaker 5: and how it operated, so I got involved with Robinhood,
Speaker 5: and I wanted to see how people were doing it,
Speaker 5: so I very much participated. I got involved with that,
Speaker 5: and I started buy a couple of shares here and there,
Speaker 5: just kind of see how the everyman was going about it.
Speaker 5: And I needed to understand how the apparatus worked as well.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I got I got deep in it, and
Speaker 5: and I think there's no other way to read the
Speaker 5: understand it unless you're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree. Did you make money in the process.
Speaker 3: I can't. I don't even tell you how much money
Speaker 3: I lost.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's part of it.
Speaker 2: What's really kind of wild, though, these individuals who started
Speaker 2: to be honest with you, like I just remember on
Speaker 2: a day when we'd have to like highlight a stock
Speaker 2: and it obviously we're going to highlight these because they
Speaker 2: were moving in such a dramatic way in a market
Speaker 2: where you know, these were names and individuals who were
Speaker 2: shaping the overall trade.
Speaker 1: It was pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Aaron, don't go anywhere, because I'm curious about the actors
Speaker 2: that were lined up and just as the movie progressed,
Speaker 2: just what you were kind of feeling and the feedback
Speaker 2: you were getting. And I'm also curious about the real
Speaker 2: life Steve Cohen's or Gaye Plotkins or Ken Griffin, if
Speaker 2: you've heard from any of them. So hang on, we're
Speaker 2: going to come back to you in just a moment.
Speaker 2: We're going to continue with Aaron Ryder, producer of Dumb Money,
Speaker 2: on Zoom from Los Angeles. I have to say, Jess,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen the movie yet either have I, But
Speaker 2: but I was thinking about, like you were here right
Speaker 2: with all of our Wall Street team and.
Speaker 1: Reporting on things, and it was just kind of crazy.
Speaker 4: It really was wild, and you couldn't stop following it,
Speaker 4: and obviously as a reporter I had to, but I
Speaker 4: mean I couldn't take my eyes off of it, even
Speaker 4: when I was not reporting on it.
Speaker 2: And then there was a reckoning because the regulators got involved.
Speaker 2: So we're going to come back to Aaron Ryder in
Speaker 2: just a moment, the producer of Dub Money.
Speaker 1: Delight to still have with us. Aaron Ryder, producer of.
Speaker 2: Dub Money on Zoom and Los Angeles, the movie opening
Speaker 2: up nationally on this Friday, Aaron. How easy was it
Speaker 2: to make this movie in terms of financially getting the funding?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, no movie is ever easy to make.
Speaker 5: It's a bit of a miracle when we actually pull
Speaker 5: it off. This one, it was a little bit complicated.
Speaker 5: We started out with it. I had to deal with
Speaker 5: the studio MGM, and we started to make the movie
Speaker 5: with them. But somewhere along the way about in pre production,
Speaker 5: MGM had sold themselves to Amazon, and that's when things
Speaker 5: got a bit more complicated. Let's say, just because you know,
Speaker 5: you have this brand new giant entity that takes over
Speaker 5: a movie studio and everything kind of slowed down. So
Speaker 5: we were not able to move forward under that that
Speaker 5: sort of deal that we had made. So we went
Speaker 5: out and found ourselves independent financiers, and we found an
Speaker 5: excellent partner with a company called Black Bear, and Teddy
Speaker 5: Schwartzman came on as our partner and we made the
Speaker 5: film together. So it started out as a studio movie,
Speaker 5: ended up independent, and then we found a home with
Speaker 5: a studio with Sony, So that's how it came together.
Speaker 2: I have to jump in because if Schwartzman sounds familiar
Speaker 2: to our audience, which it certainly does, Steve Schwartzman, of course,
Speaker 2: is his father, Steve Schwartzman.
Speaker 1: I've talked to him.
Speaker 2: He's the co founder, our founder, i should say, a Blackstone,
Speaker 2: the private equity giant. So it's kind of interesting to
Speaker 2: have that funding behind this film and a film that
Speaker 2: also kind of makes a little fun of right the
Speaker 2: hedge fund dudes, I mean they really, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of really were caught off guard during this whole you
Speaker 2: know process, if you will, of the meme stock craze.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are you know, shorting some of
Speaker 2: these names, and it really was uncomfortable for them. I'm
Speaker 2: curious about how you thought about their portrayal in the movie.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, look, these are real people. Obviously, we
Speaker 5: did a really good job at trying to tell the
Speaker 5: truth here and Our job is first and foremost to
Speaker 5: make a really compelling and entertaining movie, and just so
Speaker 5: happens that the subject matter made it very easy for
Speaker 5: us to be able to do that. So you know,
Speaker 5: we weren't out to try to overly uilify anybody. It
Speaker 5: was just to tell an honest story of what happened
Speaker 5: in this one particular.
Speaker 3: Moment in time.
Speaker 1: Well exactly. Talk to us too about the actors.
Speaker 2: The lineup is pretty amazing, Paul, Pete Davidson, Yeah, talk
Speaker 2: to us about this cast.
Speaker 3: Sure, sure.
Speaker 5: I mean, look, it all started with Paul Dano because
Speaker 5: we you know, the face of this movement, as we
Speaker 5: said before, is Keith Gill, and who's going to play that.
Speaker 5: He's iconic now, and so Paul is somebody that both
Speaker 5: Craig and I really had been trying to find something
Speaker 5: to do with. He's just an exceptional actor and he
Speaker 5: just embodies Keith feel to such a degree. He's got
Speaker 5: this great sense of humor and energy to him. And
Speaker 5: I think you'll see Paul in the way you've never
Speaker 5: seen him before. And as far as the rest of
Speaker 5: the cast goes, it's an embarrassment of riches to be
Speaker 5: honest with you. We have such a great lineup, mostly
Speaker 5: people that have been friends myself or Craig have worked
Speaker 5: with in the past, you know, between Seth Rogan and
Speaker 5: Nick Offerman, Pete Davidson, Shaling Woodley, it's kind of a
Speaker 5: remarkable ensemble and one I'm really proud of in a
Speaker 5: testament to the fact that I think everybody knew this
Speaker 5: story in one way or another wanted to get involved.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Is it a little frustrating with the Hollywood Actors strike
Speaker 2: that this incredible line up of actors can't be out
Speaker 2: there talking about the movie.
Speaker 3: A little frustrating, might ont.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Yeah, it's it is.
Speaker 5: It's it's unfortunate. But we feel like this moment is
Speaker 5: the moment for this movie. Given what's going on in
Speaker 5: the country, the division we have, the fact that we
Speaker 5: all live through this, it just feels like this is
Speaker 5: the right kind of movement and right kind of moment
Speaker 5: for a film like this, you know, And I think
Speaker 5: it's reflected in the strikes that we're seeing all throughout
Speaker 5: the country, not just in in my in my line
Speaker 5: of work with the actors and the writers going a.
Speaker 3: Strike, but the you know, the auto workers and everyone else.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of disparity out there, and I feel
Speaker 5: like this movie does a good job of of of
Speaker 5: highlighting that. So we've felt like now's the time to
Speaker 5: show this to the world. And yes, it's disappointing not
Speaker 5: to have actors there because we went through the journey
Speaker 5: with them, and it's always a lot of fun to
Speaker 5: go out and promote a movie. But it's still it
Speaker 5: seems to be generating a lot of interest. I like
Speaker 5: to think that, you know, what do we need the
Speaker 5: actors for?
Speaker 1: Right out?
Speaker 2: Your phone's ringing, Aaron, No, it's interesting. Well, the Times
Speaker 2: I thought said it really well too. They said, you know,
Speaker 2: your movie about a populist uprising, right, these you know,
Speaker 2: kind of small retail investors. These guys just kind of
Speaker 2: doing their thing on Reddit and elsewhere and really kind
Speaker 2: of bringing down the establishment in terms of the trading environment.
Speaker 2: And you think about these hedge fund titans, like it's
Speaker 2: pretty remarkable. But you as you say, like, we also
Speaker 2: are seeing workers really step out and speak up for
Speaker 2: their own rights. In terms of Hollywood, what is it
Speaker 2: that you know? I think about our audience, a smart
Speaker 2: audience so needs to understand about what's really happening there
Speaker 2: at those picket lines in a world where we're talking
Speaker 2: a lot about, you know, the next level of artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence and what kind of jobs that takes out and
Speaker 2: what it means for the creative world.
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, we look, we.
Speaker 5: Reached the moment, an inflection point, if you will, And
Speaker 5: most industries go through. The entertainment industry certainly has its
Speaker 5: moments as well. It happened back in the early sixties
Speaker 5: when actors went on strikes about residuals and that sort
Speaker 5: of thing as television became more and more prominent, And
Speaker 5: we're in that moment right now, and it's in a
Speaker 5: large part it was probably going to happen a couple
Speaker 5: of years ago, but the pandemic disruptive things, and so
Speaker 5: this was a moment that was bound to happen with this,
Speaker 5: you know, the proliferation of streamers and that sort of
Speaker 5: thing changing our business dramatically, which it has.
Speaker 3: And so with that sort of.
Speaker 5: Change comes to recalibration of how people are patent and
Speaker 5: what fair wages mean, and so, you know, not just
Speaker 5: in this industry, but I think in multiple industries across
Speaker 5: this country. So we're in that moment right now and
Speaker 5: we're all feeling and I hope it things settle sooner
Speaker 5: than later and we find that common ground affairness, so
Speaker 5: everybody can get back to work.
Speaker 1: You just have about a minute and a half left here.
Speaker 2: Is there for a favorite moment of yours in terms
Speaker 2: of making the movie or you know the process.
Speaker 1: I know it's hard for you to be.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's my favorites, my baby or my latest baby.
Speaker 1: But is there you know, take as a little bit
Speaker 1: behind the scenes.
Speaker 5: It's two things, you know, Like it's hard, as we said,
Speaker 5: it's hard making the film and pulling all these elements together,
Speaker 5: and it takes a lot of energy and certainly a
Speaker 5: lot of money, and you have to hope that the
Speaker 5: movie gods smile upon you.
Speaker 3: But for me, it's always two moments in any given film.
Speaker 5: It's the moment when you pull a whole thing together
Speaker 5: on the first day of photography, and I think about
Speaker 5: it all the way to the first moment made up
Speaker 5: until now, and when you're standing behind the director and
Speaker 5: you got the whole everybody ready to go, and the
Speaker 5: director kind of says action to me, It's like, I
Speaker 5: feel like a moment of triumph in that moment, thinking Okay,
Speaker 5: well this is happening now and this story will be indelible.
Speaker 3: Those kind of moments are never lost to me. The
Speaker 3: second part is when you show your film for the.
Speaker 5: First time in front of a large audience, like we
Speaker 5: had the opportunity to do in Toronto, and have an
Speaker 5: audience received the film the way it did, with a
Speaker 5: standing ovation the way we had, and just see how
Speaker 5: people really enjoyed the film.
Speaker 3: There's nothing more rewarding.
Speaker 2: Well, we're looking forward to see it. I have to
Speaker 2: say I haven't seen it yet, but I will. I
Speaker 2: certainly lived it reporting on it. So fascinating to see
Speaker 2: the interpretation that you guys did, because it really was
Speaker 2: a remarkable moment in time for anybody who's been watching
Speaker 2: financial markets.
Speaker 1: Another remarkable moment in time. And good to see you
Speaker 1: guys put it to the big screen.
Speaker 2: Aaron, good luck with it. Aaron Ryder, producer of dub Money.
Speaker 2: As we said, opening nationally on the big screen this
Speaker 2: Friday today, so check it out.
Speaker 1: He's joining us, of course on zoom in Los Angeles,