‘Dumb Money’ Co-Writer Lauren Schuker Blum: ‘This Movie Is Really About Who Decides Value in a Society’

variety.com:

Todd Gilchrist editor After helming a series of based-on-a-true-story projects including “Million Dollar Arm,” “The Finest Hours,” “I, Tonya” and “Pam & Tommy,” Craig Gillespie was the natural candidate to direct “Dumb Money,” Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum’s chronicle of the January 2021 GameStop stock short squeeze and its reverberations throughout Wall Street.

But Gillespie tells Variety it wasn’t his developing pedigree in this eclectic subgenre but an experience closer to home that prompted him to take on the story of Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, and the scrappy bunch of investors who rattled two hedge funds and changed investment culture forever. “I was living it with my son, who was going through COVID with us, and he was on [the subreddit] r/WallStreetBets from early on,” Gillespie reveals. “He went through this whole drama — the highs, the lows, everything about it — so I was emotionally connected to it.” In particular, Gillespie says that “Dumb Money” captures one part of a larger post-COVID moment where Americans’ collective attention became focused on systemic wealth, social and cultural inequalities. “This was one of the first ways that as a community, we found [an opportunity] to voice our frustration, and it was at The Man,” he says.

Blum and Angelo add that seizing on this story allowed them to explore some existential, not-easily answered questions about an economy and culture shaped by capitalism. “We realized that this movie is really about who decides value in a society,” says Blum. “Is it the richest people, or is it the customers who shop somewhere?

And what is the value of a store like GameStop, what is the value of a human life, and who has the say over that?” Adds Angelo, “this feels.