It’s no secret that many Americans are fed up with the excesses of Wall Street and the gambling of financial futures, but in the Jodie Foster-directed film Money Monster, things come to a head. George Clooney stars as Lee Gates, a bombastic TV host who scams viewers into making bad investments. One of the victims, Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), thinks he can take matters in his own hands and exact revenge when he storms the stage and holds Gates at gun point.
From there, Julia Roberts (who plays the show’s producer, Patty Fenn) must work to regain control of the situation, save Gates, and neutralize Budwell, all while following up on Budwell’s allegations of fraud. It looks like the kind of movie that will provide plenty of opportunities for Clooney to give grand speeches (which he’s great at doing), and O'Connell another chance at an emotional performance. Check out the trailer below:
Foster spoke with Yahoo about her film, which takes place in real time, saying of Budwell’s desire to know what happened to his investment,
“It’s really hard to explain to somebody what happened to their money. It takes an hour and a half of tense time to tell him what happened. It is rigged for the elite who understand the system. It’s specifically intended that the casual stockholder does not have the benefit of the best choices.”
Also, Foster revealed that both Clooney and Roberts filmed their scenes at completely different times, similar to several other movies they starred in together (together, and yet, not). Those accommodations meant that Roberts had to act for most of her part opposite no one. “She was staring at monitors that either had green on them or that had prerecorded material that she had to match her dialogue to," Foster said.
As a final note, though Americans take the lead as the protagonists in Money Monster, it’s worth mentioning that there are also quite a few actors spotted in the trailer from across the pond, including Caitriona Balfe (Outlander), Dominic West (The Affair), and of course O’Connell, (who has certainly come a long way from Skins...!)
Money Monster premieres in theaters May 13th. Read the official synopsis below, followed by a few hi-res-images.
In the taut and tense thriller Money Monster, Lee Gates (George Clooney) is a bombastic TV personality whose popular financial network show has made him the money wiz of Wall Street. But after he hawks a high tech stock that mysteriously crashes, an irate investor (Jack O’Connell) takes Gates, his crew, and his ace producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) hostage live on air. Unfolding in real time, Gates and Fenn must find a way to keep themselves alive while simultaneously uncovering the truth behind a tangle of big money lies.
