LOS ANGELES — “Penny Power” is the kind of mid-budget movie for thinking people that isn’t supposed to be made anymore, much less widely released in theaters with studio backing.
It tells the strange true story of small investors — a nurse, college students, a YouTube personality known as Roaring Kitty — who created a Wall Street frenzy around troubled video game retailer GameStop during the pandemic. Determined to teach professional investors a lesson and hopefully get rich in the process, they drove GameStop stock to a stratospheric level in early 2021, for a time putting pressure on the sophisticated hedge funds that had bet that GameStop stock would they would fall.
The $30 million film, directed by Craig Gillespie, features withering portrayals of real-life Wall Street figures such as Citadel titan Kenneth C. Griffin; Steven A. Cohen, hedge fund manager and owner of the New York Mets baseball team; and Gabe Plotkin, whose hedge fund lost billions of dollars in the event. In one colorful scene, Cohen, played by Vincent D’Onofrio, is in a mansion munching on a sandwich and huffing with laughter on the phone with Plotkin, played by Seth Rogen. “Honestly, I can’t tell if it’s you or Romeo,” Plotkin says, referring to Cohen’s pet pig. The camera cuts to the animal. Cohen happily throws deli meats on the carpet for him to eat.
In a twist that makes “Penny Power” even more unusual, the film was financed and produced by Teddy Schwarzman, whose father, Stephen A. Schwarzman, is also a Wall Street superpower and CEO of Blackstone, the private equity giant. Without Teddy Schwarzman’s last-minute investment—he stepped in after Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was reluctant—“Dumb Money” wouldn’t exist.say Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum, former reporters for The Wall Street Journal who wrote the script.
In 2011, Teddy Schwarzman, 44, founded a film company that has since produced arthouse hits like “The Enigma Code,” which grossed $234 million worldwide in 2014 and was nominated for eight Oscars. , winning one for Graham Moore’s script.
Sony, which bought Schwarzman’s distribution rights, expects “Penny Power” to be screened on at least 2,500 screens in the United States and Canada by Sept. 29. A launch of that size typically costs more than $20 million on the market. (Sony declined to say how much it will spend.)
In part due to the pandemic, audiences have become accustomed to watching movies at home via streaming, leaving theaters to primarily screen shows from big-budget franchises.
“There is a lot in this story that speaks to the particular cultural moment we find ourselves in — the explosion of discontent,” said Thomas E. Rothman, a Sony executive.
The film plays out like a relatively simple David and Goliath story, set to a hip-hop and rock soundtrack, with TikTok memes and TV news footage peppering the screen.
Gillespie is known for his comical, quirky films (“Lars and His Living Doll,” 2007) with lush pacing (“I, Tonya,” 2017) that sometimes lean toward pseudo-documentary. “Penny Power” was a unique challenge, he said, because the story is told through a large number of characters, many of whom have lives that never intersect.
“The priority was always to strip it down and get to the core of the emotion, which is this frustration and utter outrage at the wealth disparity that exists in this country.Gillespie said.
BROOKS BARNES. THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6897043, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-09-18 20:00:07
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