Investment Bankers' TV Show?
We have doctors' shows, lawyers' shows, advertising agency show, even the consultants' show. But, no investment bankers' show? Why? That's not fair. Maybe LSO can propose one to some TV networks, somewhat loosely related to LSO's earlier works.
Well...I would have said because the show would have been too boring without life saving surgeries and court room dramas...but after House of Lies I am beginning to think "why not?" as well..
speaking of lawyers shows, anybody else watch suits?
Saw a few episodes of this, more focused on trading but still pretty interesting
[quote=Dufus]Saw a few episodes of this, more focused on trading but still pretty interesting
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Kudos on this.
And yes, this will happen sooner rather than later. Suits is barely there, but I'd like to see Aaron Sorkin tackle this.
The "thrilling court room dramas" can be replaced with road shows/pitches/deal closing dinners etc.
I could actually see this kind of working...but can you imagine Hollywood backing a show about banking? Portraying bankers as sympathetic (or at least human) individuals? The political climate around banking immediately limits the number of potential networks/directors/producers.
Also, I don't think the average Joe gives a shit about M&A. Everyone has dealt with the law. Everyone has been in hospital. House of lies usually makes the case about personal drama. It is a lot harder to make M&A exciting if you don't already care.
Still, I think somebody might do it. Studios are desperate for good ideas.
Contents of the show? How about hot IPOs, M&A resulting layoffs and the bankers struggling in their conscience between the efficiency and the long-term good of the economy and the short-term human sufferings, a Harvard-educated IBD analyst from poor background visiting his poor childhood neighborhood?
Suits - it's a corporate law show. Yes, not investment banking, but a lot of investment banking jargon is thrown around. "Selling crown jewels, prospectus, M&A, red herring, IPO, offerrings." I think that is as close as you can get.
Google "Wall Street Warriors"
The reality is it's not going to be a show about investment banking. It would never work. What makes dramas that are not legal procedural dramas (ie Law and Order) so great is the story telling and the background is just a place to tell a story. Law and Order, despite the procedural nature is great because of the characters despite having a "Crime-of-the-Week" type bent. In order to make a show about banking work, you'd need to have a good story arc to work and the setting would need to be right to make it a viable show. No one would want to watch anything about banking except bankers unless there is a reason to care about the characters or you draw them in with something exciting. I mean, how do you make bankers look like they aren't a bunch of Entourage-lite douchebags? You can't unless you make it more about the people and just make it such that they happen to be in business.
Suits is a show about a guy who lies to get his way out of being caught for a drug deal gone wrong and the hiring partner of a major law firm likes his attitude, smarts and sees something in him. Royal Pains is about a doctor who flees practicing medicine in the city for the life of a concierge doctor in the Hamptons because he made a judgement to save two patients, a high school age kid and an elderly man, a call that cost the elderly man - a major hospital beneficiary - his life (due to unforeseen medical complications from the surgery - it happens in real life too). White Collar is about a con man being used by the FBI to catch high profile white collar criminals. ER is about the life and times of doctors in a Chicago hospital. You need to have a hook that's translatable and it has to work in the frame of the show. I just don't see banking as having that translatable hook.
The $treet. Best banking show ever. More S&T focused, but it was amazing. Highly recommended. Keep your eyes out for Rick Hoffman (the anal junior partner from Suits).
Profit is an excellent show on M&A (not on banking though)
And personally, i see Mad Men as a banking show (pitches from badass MDs, fratty atmosphere, midtown NY, hot BAs, etc.). My theory: advertisement in the 60s = ibanking in the 00s
I'd love to see a show like this as well. There was a show called Wall Street Warriors that was around in 2008, but it got cancelled when the crisis hit. You can still find it on Hulu if your interested.
WSW was hilarious.
I remember there being some chatter about the Entourage guy (Doug Ellin or something) making a show about bankers or something, but I think it fell apart. Woulda been cool.
I think we should crowdsource a show on a Wall St. Analyst, leveraged sell-out style. I've spoken with the created of LSO many times trying to get him to do something with us -- and I think he has pitched ideas to various networks, but nothing came of it.
So who in here has contacts in the entertainment industry we can partner with?
There's Dragon's Den in the UK but it's like a VC/Business Angel reality show. Small size entrepreneurs go and pitch their business to the "judges" (hosts of the show). If one of the "judges" likes the business plan he/she will finance the business owner and will have an equity stake on the firm. I think they'll also have to agree to the valuation, e.g. 50k for 40% control but the entrepreneur believes should be 30% etc..
Traders is a great show. Another good one is Bull. And there are a lot more. just do your research and you will find many TV shows about investment banking.
Wall Street TV (Originally Posted: 03/28/2007)
Do you think a TV series about the inner workings of Wall Street would be a hit TV show? Maybe based on the book "Monkey Business", or maybe just a hardcore behind the scenes look.
Why not...we're all obsessed with watching doctors and lawyers all the time...it's about time someone made a show about another profession.
the writer of entourage is coming out with a similiar show based on hedge fund guys
The show Scrubs is pretty popular, what's wrong with a show called Monkeys
I think we are all so anal retentive that the show would have to be completely authentic or else it would flop.
there were two shows in 2000, Bull and the $treet that both failed miserably.
Why isn't there a TV show about Wall St? (Originally Posted: 12/10/2012)
I just started watching the first season of Suits and it made me wonder: why is there no show about Wall St?
Suits is good as fuck, but who would watch someone work on excel for an hour?
Haha exactly.
Who wants to watch a show about some pimple faced kid spending a weekend cleaning up a PowerPoint presentation? Or an MD walking briskly through LaGuardia? Or an associate humiliating an interviewee? (Actually that could work). ONE scene might be interesting.
America thinks high finance is dramatic, crime-filled, and entertaining. It just isn't. Especially when it comes to the trading side, people think it is still like the pit at the CBOE. Sure, someone breaks a Bloomberg screen once in a while but it's just a bunch of business casual guys sitting quietly in a room.
Not too entertaining.
Cost of Capital was NOT written by the Cohen brothers, directed by Spielberg, or produced by Harvey Weinstein (damn, we Jews do rule Hollywood haha), so please lay off. It was an entertaining show, if you take it for what it is.
I love Suits btw, great show.
Those lawyers work on word for an hour too and someone creates a TV show for them. thats crazy dude
Wall Street made for a pretty good movie so I don't see why a show wouldn't be good
Completely agree and considering the success of Margin Call last year, not sure why there hasn't been at least one pilot about Wall Street.
Why would you necessarily focus on monkeys doing excel? The MDs and PE/VC/HF guys have money, power and hot women, how could this not work?
I feel like "models and bottles" is a reality TV show waiting to happen....
Cost of Capital was really good. That's a start. I am hoping someone makes a show about the life of young monkeys on Wall St. They can also add in the high-rolling, deal-making MDs for good measure. Should show life at the lower and higher rungs of finance.
LOL I watched Cost of Capitel ep. 1. I think it damaged my soul a little bit it was so bad. Don´t know which was worst, the unbelievably bad acting, the nylon thin storyline or the annoying boss.
Hollywood hates bankers. I don't mean to sound like a conservative wonk, but bankers are more likely to be vilified by Hollywood than portrayed as human beings.
Also, the average writer has at least some notion what a lawyer does. What a banker does? Not so much. The same could be said of the average viewer.
This.
Exactly, Wall Street doesn't need any more attention than it already has.
Um, the answer is pretty obvious bros. Lawyering appeals to everyone, even those (like me) without the foggiest idea of what lawyering entails. Financiers, on the other hand, live in this bubble of a world that the outside doesn't understand at all. You think Main Street folk wants to watch a show about a bunch of banker snobs making pitchbooks and sucking on the teats of some C-level fogies? I have a hunch they don't.
the average american has a general idea what a lawyer or an advertiser does, but he couldn't tell a hedgefund from a hedgehog...
and even if he could... seriously nobody cares. i'm on the west coast, and i can't tell you how little of a shit people give about investment bankers out here. try picking up chicks with your ibanker schtick out here and they'll think that you're some sort of weird accountant.
Damages is a really good show.
You're probably looking for The $treet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_$treet
got cancelled. actors went on to various lawyer shows...
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/40-from-creator-of-entourage http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/entourage-wall-street-edition
I believe that HBO had greenlit a pilot for "40." Not sure what happened with that though...
Marcus and I also tossed around some ideas on what we would have done if we had the chance to make a wall street show... pretty sure we would have murdered it...
Weird Accountant!!! Hahaha.
People know just as much about what litigation lawyers (which all of the shows are about) do as what, for example, stock brokers do. Yea sure there are many fields of finance that normal people don´t know the first thing about, but then again litigators only make up a portion of lawyers. The rest of the law jobs people don´t know anything about and couldn´t care less.
Doing deals as in I-banker, buying when shit is down and selling when it gets high, hell even PE guys breaking up companies, is all stuff people could relate to just as much as litigation.
Movies about finance have been popular, Wall Street, Boiler Room, Margin Call (hell that was even about guys in risk and people still watched that).
I think it´s just a coincidence that no one has made that kind of a show yet. They know people love to watch litigators "object" in court, so it´s a safe bet for a TV show.
I am impressed with the writers of "Suit". I for one think the law and lawyers are boring. Yet, the show is amazing. So I am guessing a good writer can make a good show out of anything, even Wall Street monkeys. Maybe the show can be like "How to Make it in America", but for Wall Street analysts coming up. It is a shame that last show was cancelled. I really think it has a lot of potential.
Suits was actually supposed to be about Wall Street, however the writers thought that it would be more impressive for Mike to skip both college and law school, as opposed to just college.
And while I love and appreciate Mergers and Inquisitions, 'Cost of Capital' was absolutely atrocious. Between the obnoxious bumps off the steering wheel, to the cheesy acting, it was just unwatchable.
You can watch old episodes of Wall Street Warriors on hulu. It's a reality TV show that takes you inside the lives of various wall streeters. I found most episodes interesting, they covered and profiled everything from Tim Sykes' scam shorting hedge fund to a professional day trader to a recent grad trying to land a job on the street to Brett Hickey seeking investment opportunities and more. I found it gives a nice overview of the different lives people live on Wall Street, rather than the standard stuff people assume Wall Street is about.
Second this - really enjoyed the show
Nobody wants to watch intelligence. Failed concept from the start. A fat retarded child with a mom that has "tow motor toe" WINNING! This is the world we live in.
Anyone watch House of Lies on Showtime? Quality show with a star-studded cast (Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell, etc). And just to stir the pot, it's not like anyone has the faintest clue what a management consultant is. At least with IB, people can associate you with Wall Street...not the case with consulting. The average person on the street has heard of Bank of America, JP Morgan, etc. No one knows what McKinsey is, and Bain recently became a household name after the Romney campaign. This is actually one of recurring jokes of the show, where everyone dreads the "so what do you do" question. It's also got a lot of the models & bottles culture, which is anything but reality, but makes for good TV.
Because most shows need a hero. Someone they can root for and identify with. And Americans don't want to root for investment bankers. (I don't think it has much to do with banking "not being accessible." Plenty of people trade stocks. And yeah yeah, most of us aren't traders, but most lawyers aren't litigators, and most doctors don't work in the ER. That's not the reason it hasn't been done.)
Suits works because every episode has some sort of pro bono pity story type thing, and it humanizes Mike and Harvey. There's usually at least one case with a clearly sympathetic client, and our buddies end up helping them out. Also, Mike is an outsider who's looking in on this world which he doesn't really belong to, much like the audience. I mean, remember, all the ACTUAL Harvard lawyers he works with except for Harvey are dicks. Rachel is just the paralegal, so she's an outsider too.
As for "banker movies," Wall Street worked because Charlie Sheen ended up quitting and fucking over evil banker Gordon Gekko. American Psycho is about a serial killer (or SPOILER ALERT non-serial killer and repressed insecure yuppie fantasizing about being a serial killer, which makes it all social commentary about how emasculatory corporate America is....food for thought), so it's not like you're on Bateman's side. You kinda hate him. That's the point.
If I were gonna do a Wall Street show, I'd do it Damages (underrated!) style where everyone has secrets, there's no clear protagonist, and it's all intrigue and conspiracy and shit. But those shows are better for winning Emmys than for making money. Kinda telling that most of the House of Lies reviews have been negative and focus on how despicable the characters as the biggest flaw.
Its funny to me that nobody mentioned Wall Street Warriors. I think it was aired for 2 seasons, they made a 3rd season too, but perhaps the whole occupy wall street clan scared them.
Wall Street Warriors.
Advertisers wouldn't pay for a spot during it
Well, if it was not just about IB, but there's a trader dude, an ER guy, a janitor, the HR woman that everyone's uneasy around...
Sent me $1bn vi PayPal and ill make the show for you ;)
Sent me $1bn via PayPal and ill make the show for you ;)
It really just comes down to drama. A lawyer show allows for more diverse and dramatic situations where the characters can continuously express themselves and add dimensions to themselves. A wall street show would run out of situations it could tackle and would eventually turn into a soap opera. That's also why House did so well. And why those cop shoes like CSI were successful.
I mean, how many insider trading plot lines can you cover?
I honestly feel a show that maybe chronicled the SEC or some sort of FBI financial crimes unit might be good (at least for a season). You could very easily build a human element that people need for a drama.
House of Lies & Suits work because those jobs are inherently more diverse (or at least they are portrayed within the shows) as more diverse than they really are. And have good writing, production, directing & acting.
I love Dexter as well. It's funny that writers are able to make a sympathetic serial killer more easily than a sympathetic wall streeter. Part of the issue is that most of those who write scripts would be the last to sympathize with anything 'Wall Street'.
The fact that The $treet and Wall Street Warriors both got cancelled should tell you something about the demand for shows about our industry. It may be entertaining to us, but I don't think it would be anywhere near as appealing to the general American TV audience.
Funny thing about human nature. I guess everybody wants to see themselves on the screen and for other people to recognize what they do. We young monkeys are no different I guess--we'd love a show about our dreams and hopes. By us, I mean wanna-be monkeys and those monkeys already working in the Financial Industry. Why else would we care about the fact that people do not "recognize" investment bankers in California?
People have made excellent points: First of all, the general public is too dumb to understand what Wall St really does, and then you have perception of people working on Wall St as villains.
I hope there is show someday though.
It sounds okay on paper, but I'll fall asleep the second the kid opens Excel or PowerPoint, period. A realistic lawyer show would have 90% of the "action" be reading books in the library, but at least part of the job can be extrapolated into a dramatic show. There is absolutely 0 work at the analyst level that is remotely interesting to an outside observer.
I mean as an IB analyst yes. But i can see something as a PE associate where theres lots of travel for diligence or port co visits and then theres just getting shit on by directors
Well funny you should say this because I have in fact completed a script based on the city (London not Wall Street). It got to the final round of this years New York Screen Play Competition (final 10) and also to the final 3 for ReelAuthors.
It is currently with the BBC as a spec script (After getting a look in but trying (in my spare time) to get someone to have a serious look at it!!!
If anyone in this forum has some kind of connection that can give this project a serious look, am more than happy to chuck you into the contract!!!
-Unfortunately, due to this being an anonymous account and the script being under my name I can't post it up without both keeping my blog anonymous and keeping copyright, but could maybe post the first 10 pages up on Scribd if people are interested.
@redrut: Hope something good works out for you.
And I can't believe I forgot to mention this: Rachel Zane played by Meghan Markle is seriously hot.
Coincidentally her first name is actually Rachel, even though she goes by Meghan. She's smart as shit too... went to Northwestern, double-majored, and worked at the US Embassy in BA... pretty sexy
Because most people are too dimwitted to understand this lifestyle/what we do/how we affect their lives without them even knowing it.
Because bankers have even worse notions than lawyers do and are too elitist to be entertaining in a show targets to mass market.
Investment Banking TV show (Originally Posted: 06/22/2013)
There's always been a plethora of television series about lawyers, doctors...almost any profession that you can care to name. I'm finding some of the current programming showing us the detailed lives of pawn shop owners particularly repulsive.
Having said that, I stumbled across an old Canadian TV show called 'Traders'. It looks like it deals with a small prop trading firm, but they seem to run the entire gamut of investment banking ops.
I think it'll give a kick to a few monkeys around here...and certainly will be a good alternative to 'Suits', which I believe is the reigning corporate TV show.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/liYdQejxvU8
Hahahaha
wow, solid acting...nice find :-)
I remember this show. It wasn't that good. There are many more interesting plot lines for doctors and lawyers. No so for financial professionals unless they are involved with legal issues. Then it'll be categorized as a legal show.
Precisely. A Wall Street show would only be interesting if there's a lot of corruption and legal issues. A TV show can not survive when only people like us are interested. They have to appeal to a mass public that for the most part hates us.
I'm only getting into the first few episodes. I was hoping to find something to supplant 'The $treet'.
House of Lies, a show about management consulting, comes pretty close imo. Definitely a fun show to watch by the way
American Pyscho TV series on FX? (Originally Posted: 09/10/2013)
So here is an asrticle letting fans know that there is an American Psycho Tv series in the works at FX. It takes place modern day where Bateman is around 50 years old and takes on a protoge.... What do you monkeys thinka bout this? http://tv.yahoo.com/news/american-psycho-sequel-series-development-fx-1…
Not really sure about the concept. Bateman taking on a protege seems a little against character. That being said, I'll still watch it and still cry at how bad it is.
Makes no sense considering the ending of the movie as being how you interpret it... did he do all that killing or not?
He killed everyone. Ellis is very clear about this and has mentioned it in several interviews.There should be no ambiguity.
Do you mean like Bateman & Robin?
Could be either epic or a train wreck. Also I could care less whether or not it "makes sense", lol, I just want to be entertained. This isn't a dissertation.
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