Multiple GameStop Stock Movies Are In The Works – And Now A TV Show, Too [Updated]

Update: Deadline reports that a TV series about the GameStop/Wall Street chaos called To the Moon is now in the works from a new company called Pinky Promise. Writer Noam Tomaschoff has reportedly met with "long-time, active members of the r/WallStreetBets reddit" to ensure they're getting the details of the story correct, and the show will follow "two roommates laid off from their jobs at GameStop and AMC, who turn Covid into lemonade by using their stimulus checks to dip into the world of day trading. It's The Big Short meets Reddit, in this chronicle of the movement that grabbed Wall Street by the wallet and chucked it all the way to the moon." Our original article about the dueling movies in development continues below.

That was fast. Following the very recent news that MGM has acquired the rights to a book proposal called The Antisocial Network in a bidding war, Netflix is now jumping on the bandwagon to make its own movie about the chaos that's happening on Wall Street right now. That's right, folks: we're now staring down the barrel of multiple GameStop stock movies.

But Netflix's version actually has a writer and star attached: Oscar-winning writer Mark Boal will write the script, and To All the Boys I've Loved Before star Noah Centineo is on board to lead the cast. And from the sound of it, Netflix's version will be more wide-ranging than covering just the craziness around GameStop stocks.

According to Deadline, Netflix is "in talks" to make a new film that touches on how regular people invested in GameStop in droves and screwed over Wall Street hedge funds. Noah Centineo is attached to play a "major role" in the movie, though it's unclear what character he'll play.

Deadline says this film's "intention is to use the GameStop episode as a specific way to shine a light on the phenomenon of how social media has leveled the playing field and allowed the masses to challenge status quo gatekeepers, for good and bad." So this may end up being just a section of a larger tapestry, one that also includes "the social media spread of unfounded election rigging charges conveyed by conservative social media sites and Trump Tweets that fired up right wing extremists to storm the Capitol while President Biden's election was being certified, leading to the death of five people."

One of the interesting things here is that the GameStop stocks situation is very much an ongoing story. Hiring Boal to write this makes sense for Netflix; Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow were at one point making a movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden without a satisfying ending. Then President Obama announced that bin Laden had been killed, and Boal and Bigelow rushed to tweak the ending of their movie to reflect those events. The result was the Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty, so it's clear he can roll with the punches if real-world news events alter the story in a significant way. Meanwhile, Centineo seems poised to move beyond the heartthrob roles he's gotten in the past, and this may be a good way to spread his wings a little.

But Deadline's report also says "there are several potential rival projects mobilizing to tell the story," so hold on tight – we might see even more movies try to capitalize on this. But will any of them actually make it to the finish line?