Sorkin's Tome Getting Hollywood Treatment - Cover via Amazon  Andrew Ross Sorkin plans to turn his cellphone on silent when his best-selling book Too Big To Fail makes its way to HBO this May.  It’s one thing for the New York Times reporter’s famously thick rolodex of sources to read their names in print; but to see their roles in the financial crisis portrayed by A-list actors like William Hurt, Billy Crudup and Paul Giamatti will inevitably ding the egos of a few.  But hubris be dammed. Having the tome adapted for the premium cable network is an important part of educating the public, says Sorkin, who appeared before TV reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour Friday to discuss the project with Fail director Curtis Hanson and writer Peter Gould. Like the book on which it is based, the film will attempt to take viewers inside the room to see the choices that needed to be made as the economy went into a tailspin fueled by toxic mortgages two-plus years ago. “People don’t really appreciate how close to the edge we really were,” he says. “I think that this project puts that into perspective.”  It will also show the complexities of many of the period’s leading men. As Sorkin sees it, none of the crisis’ characters are quite as black and white as they’re often portrayed in the media. “There are moments where you want to take them up by the collar and say, ‘What the heck are you doing? You’re really screwing this up,’” he says. “And there are moments where you actually want to give them a pat on the back in a way probably that you wouldn’t have ever expected.” It is these kind of surprises that Sorkin believes make the 2008 period, as well as his work depicting it, so fascinating.  Among the more complicated, he says, is former Lehman Brothers chief Dick Fuld, and for that reason a favorite character of his to write. Though Fuld, who is played by James Woods in the film, is often portrayed in the press as a villain, Sorkin isn’t convinced he is one. In fact, there are times when he sees Fuld as the tragic hero: “He was somebody who I think was motivated by some of the wrong things, but also motivated by some of the right things,” he says. “He was immensely loyal to the firm, to Lehman Brothers, almost blindly so; and I think he couldn’t see straight at the end, and he sort of lost his way.”  For those who shied away from the weighty book when it hit shelves in the fall of 2009, Fail’s producers claim the movie is as much human drama as it is economic policy gone wrong. “We’re trying to tell the story as factually, accurately and dramatically as we can, and making it dramatic really wasn’t that much of a challenge because the events were extraordinary,” says Gould.  “Ultimately,” he adds, “it is a disaster movie.” One that Sorkin and his growing audience hope will not need a sequel.
Wall Street egos be damned. Hollywood takes a tough look at those who managed the economy during the financial crisis.