Writer/director Adam McKay is not only funny, but he's passionate about the economic disparity that plagues this country. Aside from the fact that I love most of his movies, I love his political outrage, which I find to be well-honed and persistent but in a way that's not irritating and actually has a chance of reaching people beyond the converted. So while The Big Short looks like it will be markedly less humorous than his other films (on purpose, it's a drama), I'm betting he nails it.

And he'll have a lot of great help too. We reported earlier that Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale were onboard the film, and provided a more recent update that Steve Carell had joined the team. Now comes the news that The Big Short has started shooting and that Melissa Leo and Marisa Tomei have joined the cast. McKay and Charles Randolph wrote the script based on Michael Lewis’ bestselling non-fiction book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.

Here's the official synopsis.

“THE BIG SHORT” is the remarkable true story of the genius contrarian investors who, recognizing just how insane the housing bubble had become, figured out how to “short” the market prior to the financial collapse of 2008.

Tracy Letts (Homeland), Hamish Linklater (The Newsroom), John Magaro (Unbroken) Byron Mann, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong and Finn Wittrock also star in the film from Paramount.