Following yesterday‘s announcement of The Big Short, The Hollywood Reporter is today bringing word that Steve Carell will be joining Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt in the A-lister ensemble. Set up at Pitt’s Plan B Productions, The Big Short is being adapted by Adam McKay from Michael Lewis’ bestseller “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.” Published in 2011, the book is officially described as follows:
When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine, and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can’t pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren’t talking.
The crucial question is this: Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 best-selling Liar’s Poker. Who got it right? he asks. Who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become, and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception? And what qualities of character made those few persist when their peers and colleagues dismissed them as Chicken Littles?
The new update also gives us a look at who each actor will be playing. According to THR, Carell will star as FrontPoint Partners money manager Steve Eisman, Bale as Scion Capital’s Michael Burry, Gosling as Deutsche Bank trader Greg Lippman and Pitt as Cornwall Capital’s Ben Hockett.
The trade also confirms that McKay will both write and direct The Big Short with Pitt producing alongside DeDe Gardner.
(Photo Credit: Brian To / WENN.com)
