"Based on a true story"

Planet Money

NPR

News, Business

4.6 • 30.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When a group of amateur investors rallied around the stock for GameStop back in 2021, the story blew up the internet. News outlets around the world, including us here at Planet Money, rushed in to explain why the stock for this retail video game company was suddenly skyrocketing, at times by as much as 1700% in value, and what that meant for the rest of us.

When movie producer Aaron Ryder saw the GameStop story — an army of scrappy underdogs, banding together to strike back against a financial system they felt was rigged against them — he knew it had the makings for a great movie. The only problem: so did a bunch of other movie producers and Hollywood studios. So Aaron found himself in the middle of a fast and furious race to make the first Game Stop movie.

On today's show, one producer's quest to claim the hottest ticket in Tinseltown and the whole hidden machinery dedicated to turning a news story into box office gold. You'll never read the word 'based on a true story' the same way again.

Today's episode was reported and hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Jess Jiang, engineered by James Willetts, and fact-checked by Cooper Katz McKim and James Sneed. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from NPR Sponsor Mass Mutual.
0:03.5	Don't let the day-to-day of running your business keep you from planning for tomorrow.
0:07.8	Start preparing for the future.
0:09.5	Talk to a Mass Mutual Financial Professional today.
0:12.5	Feel comfortable about tomorrow.
0:15.5	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:21.0	When you go to the movies these days,
0:23.0	it can feel like every other movie poster is offering something based on a true story.
0:28.5	Hollywood is hungry for a dependable box office returns,
0:31.5	and they seem to be banking on the idea that people will be more likely to buy tickets to a movie about something kind of familiar,
0:39.5	which maybe explains all these celebrity-laden origin stories,
0:43.5	you know, of your favorite sneaker or ill-fated cell phone,
0:47.5	or all the biopics from Elvis to Oppenheimer.
0:51.5	And then there's this whole category of movies and shows ripped straight from the headlines.
0:57.5	Sometimes ending up on the screen so absurdly fast,
1:00.5	the stories are barely even over.
1:02.5	Think Theranos, Uber, we work.
1:05.5	But the ones that perk my years up,
1:07.5	tell the story of some recent financial fiasco.
1:10.5	Like the one Aaron Ryder first heard about back in January of 2021.
1:15.5	At the time, he was in Canada for work.
1:18.5	I was in Montreal in a tiny little apartment losing my mind.
	...

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