The Big Short (film)

 

 The Big Short is a 2015 American biographical comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Adam McKay.^[4] It is based on the 2010 book of the same name by Michael Lewis, about the financial crisis of 2007–2010 by the build-up of the housing and credit bubble.^[4] The film stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt. The film was released on December 11, 2015, by Paramount Pictures.

 

Summary

The Big Short describes several of the key players in the creation of the credit default swap market that sought to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up profiting from the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The book also highlights the eccentric nature of the type of person who bets against the market or goes against the grain.
The work follows people who believed the bubble was going to burst, like Meredith Whitney, who predicted the demise of Citigroup and Bear Stearns; Steve Eisman, an outspoken hedge fund manager; Greg Lippmann, a Deutsche Bank trader; Eugene Xu, a quantitative analyst who created the first CDO market by matching buyers and sellers; the founders of Cornwall Capital, who started a hedge fund in their garage with $110,000 and built it into $120 million when the market crashed; and Dr. Michael Burry, an ex-neurologist who created Scion Capital despite suffering from blindness in one eye and Asperger's syndrome. ^[5]
The book also highlights some people involved in the biggest losses created by the market crash: like Merrill's $300 million mezzanine CDO manager Wing Chau; Howie Hubler, infamously known as the person who lost $9 billion in one trade, the largest single loss in history;^[6] and Joseph Cassano's AIG Financial Products, which suffered over $99 billion in losses.^[7]

Cast

• Christian Bale as Michael Burry^[8]
• Steve Carell as Mark Baum (based on Steve Eisman)^[9]
• Ryan Gosling as Jared Vennett (based on Greg Lippmann)
• Brad Pitt as Ben Rickert (based on Ben Hockett)
• Melissa Leo as Georgia Hale^[10]
• Hamish Linklater as Porter Collins^[10]
• John Magaro as Charlie Geller (based on Charlie Ledley)^[10]
• Rafe Spall as Danny Moses^[10]
• Jeremy Strong as Vinny Daniel^[10]
• Marisa Tomei as Cynthia Baum (based on Valerie Feigen)^[10]
• Finn Wittrock as Jamie Shipley (based on Jamie Mai)^[10]
• Stanley Wong as Ted Jiang (based on Eugene Xu)^[10]
• Byron Mann as Wing Chau^[10]
• Tracy Letts as Lawrence Fields^[10]
• Karen Gillan as Evie^[11]
• Selena Gomez as Herself^[8]
• Max Greenfield^[12]
• Margot Robbie as Herself