"Based on a true story"

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, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/25/960454567/cant-stop-gamestop">including us here at Planet Money</a>, 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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br><em>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.<br><br>Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in </em><a href="http://n.pr/PM-digital"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em> or at </em><a href="https://n.pr/3HlREPz"><em>plus.npr.org/planetmoney</em></a><em>.</em>