I was sitting next to Harvey Weinstein.
He said, I need to buy this, but Im going to cut it.
I said, Dont cut a frame.
Pete Davidson and Paul Dano in ‘Dumb Money’Sony Pictures
Id heard you werent interested in doing that.
Because he notoriously messed with movies and Im like, no thank you.
DEADLINE:You dont always get that leverage.
(L-R) Nick Offerman and Seth Rogen in ‘Dumb Money’Sony Pictures
The deal as I recall was, take it or leave it.
GILLESPIE: Miramax sold it at Toronto, which we found out six weeks before.
They really didnt think it was going to make any money.
It made a lot.
DEADLINE:Theres strong buzz onDumb Moneyand alsoBlackBerry, about the rise and fall of the first smartphone.
Also the SEC came knocking, like inDumb Money.
Here it is Kevin Gill, originator of this grassroots GameStop stock drive that bankrupted a hedge fund.
Like Harding, he didnt break.
GILLESPIE: You didnt understand Margot Robbies explanation?
She couldnt have been more specific inThe Big Short.
DEADLINE:She was in a bubble bath, sipping champagne.
I am easily distracted.
GILLESPIE: There does seem like very much a theme of all my work.
I seem to be attracted to outsiders, underdogs.
No cell phone So it was very isolating.
Live in a 10-by-7-foot room really, and had started making my way.
DEADLINE:How did you become steeped in the GameStop thing?
GILLESPIE: My son was making Wall Street bets.
He was 24 at the time living with us during Covid, like a lot of families.
So wed be hearing about it for months.
He got in very early.
He was also trying out other stocks as well.
As it started building, he started doing really well.
He was in options, very similar to the college kids trajectory [in the movie].
But also every comment that was happening, when Elon Musk tweeted GameStop, that would spike it.
Mark Cuban popping in and saying something, and all the commentary.
His investment was very small, multiplied 50 times.
GILLESPIE: There was this crowd of Wall Street degenerates, people who prided themselves on being politically incorrect.
Covid was such a moment in our lives that will never be repeated.
Weve all experienced something that I think has profoundly changed the world.
The Black Lives Matter movement that was happening very much at the same time.
There was real frustration and anger to want to have a voice about.
That was very fascinating.
DEADLINE:Did you risk your money in GameStop stock?
GILLESPIE: After the first crash, you see in the film the college girls get back in again.
And there is now another surge.
My sons like, Dad, Im getting back in.
I do not recommend this at all.
Id been watching him for three months on this wild journey.
Im like, Im going to get in, and I bought an option.
I got educated very quickly on what an option was.
GILLESPIE: An option is very high-stakes gambling that really they only allow in the United States.
If it hits, you make an enormous return on your investment.
If it doesnt hit you lose it all.
GILLESPIE: Four days later I said, How are we doing?
My son says, Oh, we lost it.
I was like, We lost it?
He said, Yeah, zero.
DEADLINE:How much?
GILLESPIE: Ten grand.
DEADLINE:You got a movie out of it.
What did you see in Keith Gill, played by Paul Dano?
There was no agenda.
And theres this real genuineness to him that I think people connected to.
He really believed in it and he believed in the case and he made some very strong arguments.
He was working as an analyst at MassMutual.
He didnt have any clients at all, but that was his field of work.
There was this massive short squeeze on GameStop, I think 140% of the value of the stock.
He preached this for a year as the stock was short squeezed.
So thats where the community started talking about it.
This became a way to do it.
Remember, there were no sports, nothing to bet on.
It feels like the bundling of sub-prime mortgages that created the global financial collapse.
They arent building anything, just placing wagers like degenerate gamblers.
I mean, we really didnt want to paint as black and white as the villains versus the heroes.
We portray it as, thats how it works.
And they kind of shrug about it and are like, thats the way it works.
DEADLINE:Steve Cohen owns the Mets and was an inspiration for the seriesBillions.
What was the deal with him?
GILLESPIE: He was on the outskirts.
Theres a lot of interaction with those billionaires.
They all know each other.
He ended up making money out of all of this by bailing out Melvin Capital at the time.
He just figured out the angles and he made out.
There were plenty of hedge funds that did do well with this; it wasnt like everybody went down.
That was the irony of it.
Its a very complicated story on that financial side.
Melvin Capital was the one that suffered acutely, and ended up closing their doors.
Robinhood really suffered from it, and they became alienated by the community.
What made you believeDumb Moneycould be relatable to a mainstream audience?
Youve got America Ferreras character, which represented a large portion of people that were involved in this.
Shes a nurse, shes up a half million dollars at one point.
Its like you are hoping shes going to sell, youre rooting for her to sell.
If she loses it, shes back to not being able to pay her mortgage and the bills.
The stakes are astronomical in this very acute moment for them.
So thats a very relatable thing to root for.
Its exactly the same dynamic.
This disparity of wealth that people want others to be held accountable for.
Thats what she wanted to be hurt for.
That was more important to them than their own personal gains really.
And so she straddled that messaging.
So there was this really interesting moral conundrum with the messaging that was at odds with the capitalism.
Even though its a wild and fun ride along the way, and its intense.
I want people to fill that and feel activated by it.
DEADLINE:Activated how?
Should I go out right now and see if I can find a stock that a hedge fund shorted?
GILLESPIE: No, not activated by that at all.
you might say its activated however you want to be as a community to go out there.
Youve got the strikes going on right now.
I hope that it reinvigorates that faith in what theyre asking for and holding strong.
DEADLINE:It is easy to feel frustration about the film and TV businesses right now.
Largely controlled by tech titans who are not filmmakers first, as it once was.
AI is inevitable and the guilds are right to fear automation.
You go to Home Depot, which used to have six people ringing you up.
Now theres one pointing you to an open automated register.
No more toll booths.
Can we relate all this to your movie?
GILLESPIE: We have to figure out exactly where AI is going.
Everybody sees is as this dystopian society thing weve seen inThe Terminator.
That work gets done in moments that they can direct their time elsewhere.
Its hard to say where its going to land in between those scenarios.
I think you could see that theres no humanity or human connection.
DEADLINE:How did this project come our way?
GILLESPIE: I lived it in a front-row seat with my son.
The intensity of it was unbelievable.
About three months later, Im working onChippendaleswith Rebecca and Lauren, who are writing it for me.
I was fascinated by the topic that wasnt on my radar to shoot because I was busy.
Suddenly a TV series based on the Chippendales story was announced and our film exploded.
They told the story in a beautifully complex-element way.
I thought, I need to do this.
You see Keith Gill testifying, and how measured he is, with so much at stake for him.
He could literally go to jail and hed lost his job at MassMutual.
Ordinary man in this extraordinary situation.
That I was incredibly excited about, and it affected a large portion of the script.
We put it all in the movie.
What happens when he lost $30 million in 24 hours?
What are they talking about in the house?
What happened when he got subpoenaed?
What happened when they called at MassMutual?
These were incredibly intense life moments that are all happening as we are six weeks away from production.
DEADLINE:If theres a hero in Dumb Money, its Keith Gill.
Did you buy his life rights and make him part of this?
GILLESPIE: No, hes not part of it.
Hes a public figure and he did an interview with theWall Street Journalright after all of it.
Very soon after that, he did his final post and retreated from public, no social presence.
Everything thats in the film, he posted hours and hours, hours of videos.
And not just talking about stock, its talking about his life.
There was what he said online, and at the congressional hearing.
I told Rebecca and Lauren, lets have a scene where the two brothers talk about what to do.
So we worked a scene around that.
DEADLINE:Did Keith Gill make money off GameStop?
GILLESPIE: We dont know.
In his final post, he was up $34 million, starting out with a $55,000 investment.
Melvin Capital lost $6.8 billion.
You made another memorable fact-based film inI, Tonya.What do you own the subjects?
GILLESPIE: Once youre in the public eye, you’ve got the option to tell their story.
I want to be as respectful as possible and try and get it as right as we can.
Tonya was a punchline in America.
We didnt even bat an eye at it.
To re-contextualize that and change your perspective on it, was a really fascinating opportunity.
Did you have her rights?
GILLESPIE: We had Tanya Hardings rights, and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly.
Their stories completely conflicted.
We had her rights without any creative influence, which is a big caveat.
So Margot Robbie and I went and met her three weeks before we started shooting.
They hadnt spoken for two decades.
And shes like, Thats OK, as long as you tell my story.
We said, Absolutely.
DEADLINE:Her review?
She said, Thank you, youve changed my life.
Her husband was there with her and said the same.
DEADLINE:She is a punchline no more?
GILLESPIE: We did it in the same spirit of her, which was in a very unapologetic way.
She wasnt denying things.
We see the events that transpired.
We see how complicit she is or is not, in it.
It made you take pause and stop and reconsider our own judgments.
DEADLINE:You have found a niche, taking a zeitgeist true story and injecting humor and drama.
What was the most valuable lesson you learned?
GILLESPIE: I was making the wrong movie, one that wasnt supported by the script.
I was trying to make something that had more complexity to it, and the script never supported that.
Big learning curve on that one, my first film.
Im dealing with Susan Sarandon, whod done 70 movies.
I thought, naively as a director, I need to show them I know what Im doing.
So Id be like, okay, youre here.
Boom, boom, boom.
This is whats going to happen.
And they go, okay.
And there was no collaboration.
I basically shot every shot I could think of.
Woodcockand before this all imploded.
I had Ryan, and my DP had just doneCapote.
I knew the other was a mess and I said, Lets pretend this is my first film.
What do you recommend?
We were very specific what we were shooting and we shot 140,000 feet of film.
