I have been studying this stack post: Did The Big Short movie change names or conflate characters?
It was a great movie, and after reading the book, I wondered why the name changes in the movie??
In the stack article mentioned above, it never directly answers the why, other than to hint that it was related to the real-life character's preference. So, why is it that the movie had to honor the characters requests but the book did not? I don't think the characters could sue the book author for using their real names as long as he wasn't being libelous. So is there a different standard for movies? Was the studio afraid of being sued? Could they have been sued? I know there is that silly disclaimer at the end of most movies that says that any similarities with actual people are purely coincidental...but when telling a true story, is that necessary, and is there fear of lawsuit? If so, why can the book keep the names the same?
