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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]