These
figures certainly do not tally with other research, such as the Nielsen surveys which list the
combined audience for all syndicated religious programs on television in November 1980 as 19.1 million adults and children.
At the film's recent press day, McKay, Lewis, Bale, Carell, Gosling, Hamish Linklater, Jeremy Strong, producer Jeremy Kleiner, and screenwriter Charles Randolph talked about turning the book into a movie and adapting it to the screen, why McKay was the right person to direct, what drew them to the project, how the actors met their real - life counterparts in preparation for their roles, the decision to
combine a cinema verite documentary approach with other stylized elements, breaking the fourth wall, and using celebrities and pop culture
figures as an entertaining storytelling device to explain complex financial concepts to the
audience.