This year's Oscar season just got a surprise addition. The Big Short, which stars Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei and Ryan Gosling, received a last-minute release from Paramount for the end of this year, as well as a first-look trailer.

Check out the trailer below.

 

 

And here's everything you need to know about The Big Short.

It's based on a book by the author of Moneyball and The Blind Side

The movie is an adaptation of Michael Lewis's nonfiction best seller The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, originally published in 2010, about some of the players involved in the subprime mortgage financial crisis of the late 2000s. Lewis is becoming quite the dependable author of true stories to turn into major Oscar contenders. Before this, he wrote the books that became Moneyball and The Blind Side, both Best Picture nominees. We'll see if The Big Short can be a third.

 

It's directed by Adam McKay

Right now you're wondering why we said this is an Oscar contender and then told you it's by the guy who made Step Brothers, Talladega Nights and the two Anchorman movies. Well, Adam McKay managed to sneak away from Will Ferrell for a moment and direct a serious movie for the first time (he also cowrote the script with Love & Other Drugs scribe Charles Randolph). It does look like a little funny, though. The wigs look ridiculous, for one thing.

 

Steve Carell does an accent

One of the ridiculous wigs can be seen on Carell, who plays real-life money manager Steve Eisman. Eiseman racked up $1 billion betting against subprime mortgages before the housing-market collapse last decade. He was raised in New York, hence Carell's need to speak with an accent. If you want to see what he looks and sounds like, check out this video.

 

Christian Bale plays a man with Asperger syndrome

Bale also sports an interesting hairdo and also portrays a real person, Dr. Michael Burry, a neurologist turned hedge fund manager credited as one of the first people to foresee the bursting of the housing bubble. Like Eiseman, he profited a lot from the financial collapse. In the trailer, you'll note he doesn't wear shoes. In real life, Burry was said to wear shoes, just not any with laces. You can see what he looks and sounds like in this Bloomberg Business interview. 

 

 

Pitt and Gosling also play real people

Pitt is Cornwall Capital trader Ben Hockett and Gosling is Deutche Bank trader Greg Lippmann (see what he looks like here), while Byron Mann (TV's Hell on Wheels) plays less fortunate hedge fund manager Wing Chau. But that may be it as far as actual names. Leo's character is named Georgia Hale, either a made up individual or an amalgam of multiple people. And we have no character info on Tomei or fellow supporting players Selena Gomez, Karen Gillan or Rafe Spall.

 

It opens in limited release on December 11 and then goes wide on December 23

Okay, now you're all set up. Let us know what you think about the trailer below.