Margin Call (2011) on Netflix
In 2008, an investment bank lays off many employees, among them risk management head Eric Dale. His analyst Peter Sullivan finishes Dale's model and finds the firm's risk assumptions are wrong.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.1/10164,953 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes87%
Trailer
Plot summary
At a large investment bank in 2008, a round of layoffs reaches risk management and takes its head, Eric Dale, with it. On his way out he hands analyst Peter Sullivan a flash drive holding an unfinished model and warns him to be careful. Sullivan stays late to finish the work and finds that the firm's risk assumptions are wrong: volatility in mortgage-backed securities has climbed past its historical levels, and the debt behind the firm's positions is large enough to bankrupt it. He calls Seth Bregman, a junior analyst, and Will Emerson, who runs credit trading; Emerson brings in his boss, Sam Rogers. Dale cannot be reached, his company phone already disabled, and the findings go to the firm's senior executives, among them Jared Cohen and Sarah Robertson, and to chief executive John Tuld.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Margin Call (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- J. C. Chandor wrote the film in the days after Lehman Brothers failed, and built the name of its fictional chief executive John Tuld out of two real Wall Street bosses: Merrill Lynch's ex-CEO John Thain and Lehman Brothers' ex-CEO Richard Fuld.
- Principal photography took only 17 days, and more than 80% of the action was shot on the 42nd floor of Penn 1 in New York, a space that had recently been vacated by a trading firm.
- Director and screenwriter J. C. Chandor is the son of an investment banker, and the screenplay was partly inspired by his own foray into real estate investments in New York City shortly before the financial crisis.
- Made against a budget of $3.5 million, Margin Call grossed $5.4 million in the United States and Canada and $14.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $19.5 million.
- After the screening, multiple distributors competed for the film; following all-night negotiations Lionsgate partnered with Roadside Attractions for North American rights, with IFC Films reportedly among the top bidders at a seven-figure sum.
- Jeremy Irons was not there at the start: he joined the cast during the third week of filming, to play the firm's chief executive.
