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An HBO movie about the 2008 financial meltdown is finally moving. HBO has acquired rights to Too Big to Fail, the bestselling book by New York Times reporter Andrew Sorkin. Peter Gould has been hired to write the drama, and Spring Creek’s Paula Weinstein and Jeffrey Levine are executive producers.
The project has been slow going because it was first set up with a book co-written by Sorkin’s Times colleague Joe Nocera and Vanity Fair writer Bethany McLean, and they haven’t turned in their manuscript. HBO execs say they will marry the source materials to chronicle the financial crisis the same way that Recount dissected the disputed Florida results in the 2000 presidential election.
For his part, Sorkin says his book lends itself well to that task. He focused specifically on players like Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and his successor Timothy Geitner, Lehman Bros CEO Richard Fuld, and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, in boardrooms, private planes and bedrooms as the financial system teetered on the brink of collapse. “You see their human sides, the hubris, the ego,” Sorkin said. “You see Hank Paulsen literally vomiting and Dick Fuld crying with his wife as their world fell apart.”
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Will Ferrel as Bush..please
If this is about Will Farell being Bush…..I think PeeWee Herman would be a better choice!
My husband was a commodoties broker when they went to computers, which left the ring empty. No more yelling in the ring…good ole times
It’s a trading pit, not a ring. If your husband was a trader for so many years, surely you would have known that by now.
Secondly, what the hell do commodities have to do with the meltdown? Nothing, to be exact.
I’m just sayin’ … to quote Paul Reiser.
Finally, why am I even writing this post?
Sorkin is no better than the people he writes about. He has made his name by sucking up to the very people who caused the collapse of our financial system. He oozes “Wall Street” and he represents the worst of the new “journalists” who care only about access and money. He’s a star, not a reporter and he revels in the so-called access he got by writing whatever the masters of the universe on Wall Street wanted him to write. He’s part of the system that caused many of my friends to lose their jobs and I, for one, won’t be watching anything related to this snake oil salesman.
Do you really think people are going to want to watch this when the economy hasn’t rebounded? I understand the potential impact of this film, but I think people would respond to it more if they waited a bit longer to make it.
I read this book, thought it could be a great (but difficult) movie and am dying to see it. The same time of people who wouldn’t want to “watch this when the economy hasn’t rebounded” (an all-together stupid reason not to watch something) are probably the same people who would never watch the movie anyway. HBO’s right to make this as soon as possible.
Bad timing? I don’t think so. Remember, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN came out within two years of the Watergate hearings and the public lapped it up, so now’s as good a time as any.
Paulson shaould have vomitted on Dick Fuld and his wife.
Classic, true story.
will be interesting if done right, which i am sure it will be- Larry David for Hank Paulson?
Steven Weber as Geitner
Richard Schiff as Bernanke
Jeff Goldblum (shaved and in makeup) as Paulson
John DeLancie as Fuld
That said I like that HBO makes these kind of “business book” movies but their track record is kind of crappy — Barbarians at the Gate, Recount, Weapons of Mass Distraction were all pretty limited in terms of entertainment value, and only Late Shift had true, train wreck viewing power. Good luck though — it’s a long climb and many millions to spend to get that Sunday premirer audience of what, 2 million viewers?
Mitch Pileggi for Hank Paulson, the similarities are amazing!
I guess it is another kind of “Recount” for HBO except now it’s money rather than votes
this film has already been made by the BCC with USA actors, incl. James Cromwell as Henry Paulsen
“Last Days Of Lehman Brothers”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1495980/
Interesting idea, but agreeing with njames- depending on the premiere date this may not work. No one wants to watch a movie about current events (just check out BO numbers for “Stop Loss,” “Lions for Lambs,” etc, etc, etc.) However, if this definetly goes into production, it’d be interesting to see what figures they focus on and who plays them. If nothing else, the project would be good fodder for some Emmys down the road.
are you nuts!
You don’t have to wait for HBO to produce this documentary. Check out “Generation Zero” -The Truth About the Financial Meltdown is a documentary produced by David N. Bossie and directed by Steve K. Bannon that examines the causes of the economic collapse of September 18, 2008. http://www.generationzeromovie.com
Would that it would make enough people angry that we would actually get financial reform.
Looks good. Mazel tov. J
I agree completely that Amato has yet to grow into the job. Barry Levinson and Paula Weinstein are no longer his bosses yet he still wants their favor. And at the expense of his own reputation and other projects in development. He is unreachable and hard to focus.
He makes little or no effort with producers or writers or directors. Nice but odd.
Couldn’t agree less! The guy is razor sharp and a class act.
Will this be entertainment or a bunch of people on soapboxes ?
Barbarians at the Gate was the last great movie about Corporate power because Larry Gelbart did a great job with the script, and was not preachy.
You could have some great story lines- Jamie Diamon of JPMC watching as many of his competitors imploded including Citi-, creation of the man who fired him Sandy Weil.
There going to merge in a text by McLean? Saint Peter on a pony, she sucks. Really, she had amazing access for _Smartest Guys in the Room_, but that was the only selling point of the book. Instead of letting people’s misdeeds speak for themselves she had to make the most stilted presentation of the facts. Hell, after a few chapters of that shit, I started rooting FOR Skilling and Lay. I can only imagine what a hatchet job she will make of this.
No, the best account will be written from someone ho saw the inside — just like Liar’s Poker. I’m thinking someone who was inside Lehman, AIG, or Citi.
How is Andrew Sorkin (of Scarsdale, NY) related to Ira Sorkin, Esq., defending atty of Madoff and other white collar crime defandants (of Scarsdale, NY) and to Adam Sorkin West Wing producer (of Scarsdale, NY)?
If he is, does it have any significance? Do they celebrate holidays together?
Hopefully this won’t be as much of a puff peice on Paulson as that movie W turned out to be about Bush.
If the movie assumes that paulson acted in the interests of the people and simply had a tough thing to deal with it will be a puff peice.
If it details the likely fact that he was personally profiting from stock relationships with the people he bailed out and the likelihood that even before the Credit Default collapse becoming obvious that the players had their people in washington to funnel vast amounts of the public’s money to them for their person profit then it might be a real expose.
If this summary is true “Paulson is the central focus of a film that dissects how the co-dependency between D.C. and Wall Street nearly destroyed and then repaired the crisis.” then the fact that they think anythign was repaired shows it will be a puff piece.
things were “repaired” only in the sense that the robber’s judges decidedto “repair” the theft by directing government moeny to the robbers allowing them to keep all their stolen money.
I would suspect the reaosn the original book wasn’t finished was the indicments haven’t yet gotten the truth on the record.
But we don’t have to wait for indictments to know the truth.
It’s obvious. Paulson ran one of the companies that made bets with public money. He then got himself in a position to guarantee that company all the bad bets with taxpayers money when they went bad in later years.
Paulson and Gietner insured that the companies were able to rob the same till twice while having all the bad bets put on the taxpayer’s balance sheets.
I wonder if the movie will explain that?
If not it will just be another “W” which falsely portrayed that Bush was simply stupid and didn’t know all the things he did were wrong when the evidence has come out that clearly proves otherwise.
Wow dude.
Read Paulson book or at least do some sophomoric research before you start spinning some kind of conspiratorial web. Paulson DID bring us back from the brink with what the law at the time allowed him to do. Just because you hate Wall Street doesn’t mean Sorkin is really a Wall Street suck up any more than it means Paul Krugman is really the second coming of Christ. As regards Goldman Sachs, the bonuses they paid, which were both un-timely and distastefull, doesn’t mean they didn’t make good decisions as regards the liquidity of their assets prior to the crises Nor does it mean Paulson was the leader of some back room Cabal who only took care of his old buddies. He couldn’t and wouldn’t have done anything different for Blankfine at GS than he could have done for Fuld at Lehman. Fuld had plenty of opportunity to cut his loses prior to the markets seizing up. He had been warned. In August 2007 GS wasn’t leveraged 43 to 1 nor was it bleeding value from questionable assets, daily. I think GS is as guilty as the rest in creating the systemic risk that caused the crisis but the fact remains GS had more securitized GOOD assets than Bear Sterns or Lehman Bros. For Christ sake, Bear Sterns invented garbage like CDOs and LDOs! GS was smarter. That’s why they survived. There is a need for brevity in this response so read all the books out there and see if you still feel the same. Most people who Monday morning quarterback the ’08 financial crisis don’t do any real homework they just end up repeating things they hear from all the financially illiterate pundants who bottom feed on media buzz words and sound bites. Makes for good TV but lacks intellectual honesty
Mike
Pete Antico should be in this film. He had a brilliant but small powerful role in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street II. If you saw the 5 minutes of him that was cut out of Wall St 2 you would offer him a lead in this financial saga. You will never get an actor who is as economically and financially sophisticated as Pete Antico.