"[34] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". In her book, Bloom only refers by name to the people who the media had already outed, protecting the identity of her players who remained anonymous. Ski Team," Bloom said during an interview on Ellen. With this in mind she moves to Los Angeles and becomes a cocktail waitress, and eventually assists Dean, a real estate developer . When she meets with Jaffey, he's already read her memoir. Keep your chip.. Brad is indicted for running a Ponzi scheme; Molly is investigated and questioned as to who attended her games. Molly ran two underground games that attracted some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Macaulay Culkin, Alex Rodriguez, Pete Sampras and others. Aaron's Sorkin's Molly's Game stars Jessica Chastain as the real-life Molly Bloom, who ran the most exclusive high-stakes poker games in the world. That's how the celebrities got outed. One morning, a bunch of guys took him up on it. Related: The Social Network True Story: Everything The Facebook Movie Got Wrong. She had trained for years to become an Olympic skier, but was injured while trying to qualify for the Olympics. Here is the true story of what happened, including some details Mollys Game leaves out. Could James Harden Potentially Return to Houston After the Season? And I was getting stiffed a lot. Aaron Sorkin, who is a skilled writer and known for adapting famous films such as To Kill A Mockingbird in 2018, wrote and directed Molly's Game. While taking the year off between undergrad and presumably law school, Molly went to LA in 2003 and began working a number of different jobs, including as a cocktail waitress and an executive assistant to real estate entrepreneur Darin Feinstein, one of the co-owners of the Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room (renamed The Cobra Lounge in the movie). The investors claimed the celebrities had won cash from Ruderman that belonged to them. Editorial Reviews. As she is about to return to her poker games, the FBI raids, as Douglas Downey, a player infatuated with her, informs on her. How it plays out in the movie: After the heated exchange about her tips, Bloom receives a text from Player X that says the game will take place at another venuerather than the hotel she had set up for everyoneand there was no need for her to show up. High in the Clouds. Curtis claims Bloom was not the mastermind she purported to be and that she was primarily there to deflect attention so that he and Maguire could win millions without spooking their pals. Born on April 21, 1978, in Loveland, Colorado, Molly was a competitive mogul skier attempting to qualify for Olympics, but an unfortunate back injury ended her career. No poker player can beat that juice, but Houston said he agreed. Bloom also wrote that Maguire "was the worst tipper, the best player, and the absolute worst loser. The film follows Bloom (Chastain), who becomes the target of an FBI investigation after the underground poker empire she runs for Hollywood celebrities, athletes, business tycoons, and the Russian mob is exposed. She wouldnt do it but he still gave her a thousand that night. The truth is, Player X is less of a collection of stories relating to different celebrities, and more of a stand-in for one star in specific. The rest of Molly's Game never lives up to the promise of its first scene. So I want to help women to be successful." Every week? I asked, assessing the damage. Molly Bloom ran the most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before the FBI arrested her. But Maguire wasnt comfortable having players in his house. Molly Bloom (born April 21, 1978) is an American entrepreneur, speaker, [1] and author of the 2014 memoir Molly's Game. It was nice, he said, and pushed into a huge pot. For each section, well include excerpts from Blooms book. Discover the MBTI personality type of 7 popular Molly's Game (Movies) characters and find out which ones you are most like! Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) makes his directorial debut with Molly's Game, which is based on the life of so-called "Poker Princess" Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), a former Olympic skiing hopeful who turned to running high-stakes, celebrity-studded underground poker games in Los Angeles and New York after an unfortunate wipeout on the slopes . Broken, beaten and abandoned, Curtis received a lifeline of $15,000 from Moonves and found a ride to Illinois, where he went to live with his mother. Currently you are able to watch "Molly's Game" streaming on Netflix, Netflix basic with Ads. Kevin Washington chewed tobacco and spit into a cup; Tobey hated that, said Curtis. In fact, Sorkin didnt even interview Blooms real-life lawyer, Jim Walden, to allow himself one wholly fictional element. The movie even nods at this association by stating Player X had once portrayed a superhero; Maguire famously played Spiderman in the mid-2000s trilogy. Thank you, I sniffled, wanting to believe him. Her fathers overbearing insistence on excellence, her skiing career and accident, and her start as a waitress make appearances both in Blooms memoir and in interviews with the ex Poker Princess. But Tobey said, Dont worry. Player X agrees to cover the losses with an exceptionally unfair deal: He will get 50 percent of Eustices wins until the debt is paid off, and none of his losses. we learned that the real nightclub where the poker games initially took place was The Viper Room on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. [29] The film expanded wide on January 5, 2018, alongside the opening of Insidious: The Last Key, and was projected to gross around $6 million from 1,608 theaters in its opening weekend. Download eBook Molly's Game: From Hollywood's Elite to Wall Street's Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker Full Pages Details Details Product: Soon to be a major motion picture, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin and starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, and Michael Cerathe true story of Hollywood's poker princess who gambled . Bloom herself was the one to approach Sorkin, rather than the other way around. She stayed silent on the others, protecting their identities. A best friend of Maguire, Leo came to play poker when Mollys games were just starting out. Starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Copyright 2023 HistoryvsHollywood.com, CTF Media, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, Molly's Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World. Sorkin's style of giving characters extended monologues and extremely cutting lines has been criticizedas over-the-top and unrealistic, which are sometimes fair descriptions of Sorkin's work. Everything portrayed up until Molly moves to LA in Mollys Game is extremely accurate of the true story. This seems to be in line with the tasteless persona of "Player X" in the Molly's Game movie. As they recognized him, they turned into excitable little boys. Im not kidding. Directed and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the memoir by Molly Bloom. Molly is currently pregnant, and expecting a baby girl in 2022. Molly had nothing to do with anything, Curtis said. Molly's Game is based on the true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. How it plays out in the movie: Sorkins film introduces Harlan Eustice (played by Bill Camp), one of the few players at the game with a finite amount of income. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin even gives a nod to the Spider-Man actor at one point, with a line about "Player X" portraying a superhero. Oops. The movie calls him Dean Keith; Blooms memoir calls him Reardon Green. He had taken to criticizing me about everything under the sun, especially how much I was making in my role. Back to the flashbacks - after her skiing accident Molly moves to LA, wanting to take some time off before going to law school and have some fun. About. With the deal done, Curtis writes, Maguire joyfully shouted, I own you now! She then gets a call from the cackling celeb, who triumphantly tells her, You are so fucked.. My face was on fire. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business . Salomon is probably best known for the sex tape he made with then-girlfriend Paris Hilton in 2004, but he's a big-time poker player in his own right: He won $2.8 million at the 2014 World Series. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. And then, the feds started secretly following me and listening to our conversations." Molly Bloom, a beautiful young Olympic-class skier, ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. I recognized in that instant that this is not an opportunity that a girl from a small town in Colorado gets. And as A-Rod took in the glamorous, well-appointed poker game I was running, a game that happened to have millions of dollars in chips on the table, the posturing started Alex Rodriguez was watching it all, and having a great time. We ask all these burning questions, and more! She eventually moved up from assistant to game-runner, making as much as $4 million a year while servicingMolly's Game's Player X and other high rollers. An avid reader and fan of writing, she leverages her love of literature to dissect movies in her favorite genres, including horror, rom-coms, and superhero movies. [21], Molly Bloom herself discussed Chastain's portrayal of her character with ET Canada stating, "We spent a little time together. At this time, she becomes increasingly addicted to drugs, as the games have taken their toll. Mollys Game features a star-studded cast, with Jessica Chastain in the titular role, Idris Elba as lawyer Charlie Jaffey, Kevin Costner as father Larry Bloom, and Michael Cera as the nasty Player X. The deal was impossible to overcome, said Curtis. Something went wrong. When Maguire convinced Bloom to increase the buy-ins for the L.A. games, he promised to bring Affleck into the fold. In real life, Bloom wrote in her memoir that Tobey Maguire once offered her a $1,000 tip to bark like a seal that wants a fish and then stormed off when she refused. (Independently, Bloom was sentenced to a years probation, a $200,000 fine and 200 hours of community service for gambling-related infractions in NYC.). Tobey said that he and I would have to stake Leo, recalled Curtis, meaning they would put up cash for DiCaprio to play, covering his losses but also getting a share of his winnings. In Mollys Game, it is called The Cobra Lounge, while the real-life poker games took place at The Viper Room, found on the Sunset Strip. After reaching out to many wealthy New Yorkers, Molly finds enough players for several weekly games. "I saw someone lose $100 million in a night," says Bloom, "and he paid the next day." Her players included Hollywood royalty . In particular, she hopes to please the most successful player, a film star named Player X, by attracting new players to the game. Instead of attending law school immediately, Molly takes a year off and moves to LA. I walked into my house, my daughter ran up to me, and I literally broke into tears.. To succeed in the NFL, hell need to be an outlier among outliers. Molly arrives in her best dressshe bought it for $88 at J.C. Penneyand collects $10,000 from every poker player who walks through the doors. Im not going to bark like a seal. [11][12] On January 7, 2016, it was announced that Sorkin would make his directorial debut on the film, for Sony Pictures Entertainment, while Amy Pascal also produced. He also relied heavily on her memoir of the same name (pictured below). Based on a true story. Yes, 'Molly's Game' is based on a true story. After she declines, she is attacked in her home, held at gunpoint and her mother's life is threatened. However, because the book was published between Mollys arrest and sentencing, it is unlikely Jaffey (or his equivalent) would have had time to do this in real life. Her only ally was criminal defense lawyer Charlie Jaffey, who learned there was much more to Molly than poker. Please enter a valid email and try again. Like in the movie, her boss fired her from his game, so she decided to utilize the contacts she made to start up a poker game of her own. Reading the book and watching the movie, its pretty easy to determine that Player X is actually the OG Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire. Sorkin has certainly made a name for himself in the biopic scene, having written the screenplay for award winning films such as Charlie Wilsons War, The Social Network, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs.