“Anchorman” helmer Adam McKay will adapt and direct financial drama “The Big Short” from his own script for Paramount and Brad Pitt‘s Plan B.
The film will be based on Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine” about the housing and credit bubble of the 2000s.
Pitt starred in and produced Lewis’ “Moneyball.” Paramount acquired the rights to “The Big Short” last year and set the project up at Plan B.
“Michael Lewis has the amazing ability to take complex formulas and concepts and turn them into page turners,” McKay said. “Plan B and I connected over that breathless quality the book has.”
The book was released in 2010 by W.W. Norton and centered on the financial players who believed the collateralized debt obligation bubble was going to burst and bet against it, thus profiting from the financial crisis.
The “Big Short” directing gig is a departure for the multihyphenate McKay, who has teamed with Will Ferrell for the “Anchorman” movies, “Talladega Nights,” “Step Brothers,” and “The Other Guys.” Ferrell and McKay also founded the comedy website Funny or Die through their production company Gary Sanchez Prods.
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McKay and Ferrell touched up the themes of Wall Street corruption in 2010’s “The Other Guys.” The film centered on a scheme by a Wall Street investor, played by Steve Coogan, to steal billions of dollars from a police pension fund to cover a massive loss incurred for a major corporation.
Additionally, the end credits in “The Other Guys” contained graphics detailing the costs of the federal government’s bailout.
McKat’s recent “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” grossed over $170 million globally.
He is repped by WME and Mosaic.
