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Michael Lewis wrote the best-seller that became the Hollywood blockbuster The Blind Side. An adaptation of his book, Moneyball, is set to begin shooting in a few weeks with Brad Pitt playing the lead.  Now Brad Pitt’s production company is fast-tracking an adaptation of Lewis’ latest book about the sub-prime meltdown, The Big Short.  Michael Lewis is so hot right now, he could take a crap, wrap it in tin foil, write a book about it, and sell it to Oprah who’d eat it page by page like a goat.BigShort-Nirvana-Baby

Vulture has learned that Pitt, who is producing an adaptation of The Big Short, Lewis’s explication of America’s 2008 financial meltdown, is moving quickly to get his most recent best seller made: Insiders tell Vulture that Paramount and Pitt’s company, Plan B, are imminently hiring screenwriter Charles Randolph (The Interpreter) for a cool three-quarters of a million dollars to adapt the Lewis book.

Iraq War movies have tanked, which would indicate that moviegoers have little interest in paying to see their country’s current sh*tstorms reenacted on the big screen. And yet Hollywood seems to think that economic Armageddon will prove more alluring than war. In addition to The Big Short, Fox’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps arrives in theaters on September 24, while Summit Entertainment is developing Rigged with star Kevin Spacey, based on author Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction account, Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, From Wall Street to Dubai.

I read this book a few months ago, and I think what people are forgetting when they paint it as another depressing financial crisis story is that the book starts before the crisis, and focuses mainly on the people who were betting everything against sub-prime mortgages (hence the title, “The Big Short”).  That way, you end up sort of rooting for the eventual financial collapse, because you identify with the characters who are taking a big risk to bet against these worthless mortgage bonds, even while everyone is telling them that they’re crazy.  It’s a great read, and because it’s sort of character driven, I could see it working as a film.  That is, as long as they don’t turn it into a story about some savant from the inner city who, even though he can’t read, scores in the 98th percentile in “financial protection instincts.”  And one of the main characters in the book has Asperger’s Syndrome, so I guarantee that’s basically what will happen.  AGAINST ALL ODDS, IDIOT SAVANT MAKES GOOD THROUGH STOCK MARKET.  YER CHANGIN’ THAT BOY’S STOCKS.  NOPE. HE’S CHANGIN’ MAHN.  IN THE MORTGAGE CRISIS, IT’S ‘BLING BANG.’

Seriously, just wait.