He directed four films Apatow produced: Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers and upcoming Anchorman 2.
Adam McKay has signed on to adapt and direct Michael Lewis‘ best-selling book The Big Short for Paramount Pictures.
Brad Pitt‘s Plan B, which brought Lewis’ Moneyball to the big screen, is producing. Plan B and Paramount had been feuding over the Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave (studio executives believed that Plan B breached its deal with Paramount by failing to offer it an opportunity to finance and distribute the slavery-era drama, prompting Plan B to move its first-look deal to New Regency). With The Big Short moving forward, perhaps the two sides have reached a detente.
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“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. Very excited to jump into this.”
Added Adam Goodman, Paramount Film Group president: “I am so excited as this project marks my third collaboration with Adam McKay — a tremendously talented filmmaker and one of my favorite storytellers.”
Goodman previously worked with McKay on the two Anchorman films. Released last year, Anchorman 2 has earned more than $170 million worldwide.
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The nonfiction book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine chronicles the housing and credit bubbles of the 2000s.
“There are those rare literary treasures — as with The Big Short — that park in the harbor and you just wait, with hope,” Plan B said in a statement. “Adam McKay is a singular voice and talent and a ferocious mind. The vector of Adam and this book is what a producer dreams of.”
McKay is repped by WME and Mosaic.
E-mail: Tatiana.Siegel@THR.com
Twitter: @TatianaSiegel27
