What is Paramount Pictures The Big Short?
Paramount Pictures' "The Big Short" is a gripping drama film that takes a deep dive into the events that led to the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Directed by Adam McKay and based on the non-fiction book by Michael Lewis, the movie explores the lead-up to the crisis and how a group of investors bet against the housing market.
Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt, the film takes a complex subject matter and presents it in an innovative and entertaining way. The actors deliver outstanding performances, bringing to life the real-life characters who were behind the enormous financial gamble.
The film depicts the greed, corruption, and recklessness of the banking industry and the financial regulatory system that was failing the people it was supposed to protect. The Big Short exposes the financial system's flaws, leaving a grim impression of how flawed the economy had become.
The plot is brilliantly crafted, keeping the viewer engaged while educating them on complex financial concepts. The film's soundtrack also adds to its strengths, making it a complete cinematic experience.
In a world where many people still feel the effects of the crisis, "The Big Short" stands out as a movie that not only entertains but also educates. It is a reminder that we must take strides to address the systemic problems that led to one of the world's worst financial crises.
Frequently Asked Questions about paramount pictures the big short
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Co-written by Charles Randolph, it is based on the 2010 book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis showing how the 2007–2008 financial crisis was triggered by the United States housing bubble.
The Big Short, while based on a true story, takes creative liberties and changes the names of several main characters for the sake of narrative and entertainment value. The movie overplays the threat of Morgan Stanley collapsing, making an unfounded threat for dramatic effect.
The Real-Life 'Big Short' Bankers: Where Are They Now?
- Dr. Michael Burry (Played by Christian Bale)
- Steve Eisman (aka Mark Baum, played by Steve Carell)
- Greg Lippmann (aka Jared Vannett, played by Ryan Gosling)
- Ben Hockett (aka Ben Rickert, played by Brad Pitt)
Mark Baum, based on real-life investor Steve Eisman, and his team made $1 billion from the market crash by shorting collateralized debt obligations.
In 2008, Wall Street guru Michael Burry realizes that a number of subprime home loans are in danger of defaulting. Burry bets against the housing market by throwing more than $1 billion of his investors' money into credit default swaps. His actions attract the attention of banker Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), hedge-fund specialist Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and other greedy opportunists. Together, these men make a fortune by taking full advantage of the impending economic collapse in America.The Big Short / Film synopsis
Summary. The Big Short describes several of the main 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 2007–08.
In 2008, Wall Street guru Michael Burry realizes that a number of subprime home loans are in danger of defaulting. Burry bets against the housing market by throwing more than $1 billion of his investors' money into credit default swaps. His actions attract the attention of banker Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), hedge-fund specialist Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and other greedy opportunists. Together, these men make a fortune by taking full advantage of the impending economic collapse in America.The Big Short / Film synopsis
Michael James Burry (/ˈbɜːri/; born June 19, 1971) is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He founded the hedge fund Scion Capital, which he ran from 2000 until 2008 before closing it to focus on his personal investments.
$1 billion
While this is an impressive sum, and Burry is widely credited with being the first to predict the collapse of the red-hot housing market, Steve Eisman, upon which the Big Short character Mark Baum (played by Steve Carell) was based, made a staggering $1 billion shorting collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), a type of ...
Michael Burry is no stranger to making controversial bets
His investors thought the play was reckless, and he endured vicious criticism -- up until it eventually paid off when the housing market crashed in 2008. Burry took home an estimated $100 million, and Scion's investors pocketed a whopping $700 million.
One of the main themes of the film is the importance of questioning authority. The film portrays the characters as as outsiders to the financial industry, who question the conventional wisdom that the housing market is stable and will continue to grow.
The banks were actually in real danger of going bankrupt. If that had happened, then the holders of the swaps wouldn't have received anything. So, to recover the money they had paid in premiums, the holders of the swaps instead sold the swaps themselves.
The movie highlights how complex mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) played a significant role in the crisis. Investors who took the time to comprehend these instruments and their underlying risks were able to identify the impending collapse and profit from it.
In perhaps the most successful and notorious move of his investing career, Burry essentially shorted the overvalued and under-regulated mortgage-backed securities industry as it was ballooning in the mid to late 2000s, a saga that was immortalized in the 2015 film The Big Short.
The Big Short employs vivid, colloquial, and even humorous ways to illustrate and define the complex financial instruments and tools, from collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and tranches to credit-default swaps and mortgage-backed securities, that helped sink the global economy.
Michael Burry was worth around $1.2 billion in April of 2023, having built much of his wealth shorting tech companies during the dot-com bubble and later shorting the mortgage market before its collapse in 2007 prior to the Great Recession.
