In the original story of David versus Goliath, a much smaller and less intimidating David manages victory in a battle with the gargantuan Goliath by acting quick on his feet and seizing opportunity when it presents itself. The world we live in could be likened to that of the biblical story with the common man representing David and big corporations and the government Goliath, however it has been much harder for David to topple Goliath in our world. This past week though exactly that happened with the debacle surrounding the GameStop stock, as well as a few others, when some savvy small time investors devised a way to beat the system. The saga is seemingly far from over just yet, but the entire country is already enthralled with what a small group of people from a community on Reddit were capable of doing. So enthralled that two major film studios, MGM and Netflix, are racing to see who can produce a film about the bizarre situation at hand.
To give some background, and without boring the reader with an abundance of detail, brokerage firms were shorting GameStop stock heavily and essentially banking on the company to go under. Through a series of events, some individuals in the Subreddit community r/wallstreetbets caught wind of this and decided to reverse the course of history, instead buying up GameStop stock by the boatload. This put the brokerage firms in a difficult position and forced them to rush to close their position in shorting the stock; with both brokers and Redditt users buying the stock up so quickly the price spiked dramatically, reaching $347 at one point after sitting in the single digits for the majority of 2020. Now MGM and Netflix are both in a race to tell the tale of GameStop’s stock before the saga has even ended, with Netflix signing Noah Centineo to star in their version and MGM hiring Mark Boal, responsible for Zero Dark Thirty, to write theirs. While we wait to see how this saga ends, both studios will likely remain steadfast in their efforts to bring the story to life and to the silver screen.
This is definitely an intriguing way to start off a year and follow up the year we are recovering from. Following a rather bleak 2020 highlighted by a pandemic that has ravaged the entire world, the biggest story of 2021 thus far instead highlights how Wall Street, the bane of the common man’s existence, has been ravaged instead. It is difficult to tell how this will end, especially without getting into the technicalities of the stock market, MGM and Netflix do not want to be sitting ducks when it does reach its end. Both parties seem to be putting this story on the fast track, teaming up with notable actors and writers to capture the story in the most interesting way possible. Only time can tell how this real life account of David versus Goliath will end, and subsequently when either of these ambitious film adaptations will make it to consumers.
