| In the Book |
In the Movie |
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The drug is called MDT-48. |
It is called NZT-48. |
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Eddie is a copy writer at a small publishing house. He is writing a story about the connection between current technology and the counter culture of the 60s. |
He is unemployed but has a book deal. He is working on a book, but the details are unclear.
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The main character's name is Eddie Spinola. |
His name is now Eddie Morra. |
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Eddie is a confessed former Coke addict and admits that the whole time he was married, he and his wife abused cocaine with Vernon. |
Eddie doesn't mention doing cocaine.
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The story starts with Eddie in a motel in Vermont. He wants to get an account of what has happened to him down on disc. |
He is standing on the ledge of his apartment balcony with people trying to get inside. He narrates that he thought it would all end differently and he flashes back to start telling the story. |
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Eddie has an ex-girlfriend named Maria. She has a 10 year old daughter named Romy |
He has a girlfriend named Lindy, who he proposes to, but she breaks up with him.
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When Eddie meets Vernon on the street he notes that Eddie has gained a lot of weight, and Vernon is balding. |
Eddie is think and Vernon has a full head of hair. |
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MDT-48 is a small white pill. It sells for $500 per pill. |
NZT-48 is a clear pill. It costs $800.
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Eddie takes the pill before he leaves the bar. |
He takes it just as he is going into his apartment. |
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Eddie arrives at his apartment and sees no one. He goes in and cleans his apartment. He reads a bunch of books and makes a bunch of notes that will help him with his book. |
He arrives at his apartment and the drug starts to take effect. He finds his landlord's wife waiting for him. She is pissed because he is late with the rent. He uses his new mind to wow her by talking about the book she has in her bag. He suggests a better book to help with her studies. They go to her apartment and have sex and he helps her with the paper. He goes to his apartment and cleans and writes 90 pages of his book.
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Eddie finds Vernon dead and his apartment ransacked. He calls the cops. Then he finds Vernon's address book and calls Melisa, his ex wife and Vernon's sister and leaves a long message letting her know that Vernon is dead. Then he starts looking for the MDT-48. He searches in the bedroom and then thinks about his fingerprints. He wipes what he touched down with his jacket. Then he notices a panel out of place above the bed. He moves it and finds a large envelope with a black book, a load of cash and a bunch of the white pills. He puts the stuff in a plastic bag and runs out of the apartment to hide the bag in the emergency stairs. He returns and waits for a young cop in uniform to arrive. |
He finds Vernon and calls the cops. He doesn't call his sister. He puts on some rubber cleaning gloves and starts searching. He is about to give up when he sees Vernon's pristine oven. He opens the bottom and finds something wrapped in tinfoil. It is the book, money and drugs. He shoves it down his pants and the cops show up. |
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Eddie sees Vernon reading the Boston Globe and he asks Eddie to get him the days copy when he goes out to get his dry cleaning and some breakfast. Eddie hears people discussing the trouble in Mexico while he is out. |
There is no mention of the Boston Globe or any trouble in Mexico.
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Eddie called Melissa from Vernon's right after he is killed and leaves a message. The cops come and question him for a bit at the apartment. Then he goes to the precinct and he talks to Melissa on the phone. |
He doesn't call her from the apartment, and they don't talk to him there. He is shown at the precinct and the detective is asking him questions. Then he gives him the phone so he can talk to Melissa. |
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After leaving the police station, Eddie goes home. He thinks he might be followed, so he changes from cab to subway and to bus and walks home. He checks his notes, and decides he must return and get the pills and money he found at Vernon's. He showers and shaves, and puts on a suit. He goes to Vernon's building and gets out on the 25th floor. He takes the stairs down and finds the pills where he left them. He goes home and changes and counts the money and the pills. There is $9450 dollars and 467 pills. He waits to take a pill. He wants to get some rest first. |
Eddie leaves the police station and walks home. He counts the money and takes a pill immediately.
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Eddie spends the first few days getting his notes ready and finishing the introduction to his book. He picks out the illustrations and is ready to hand it all in after a few days, but his boss says he doesn't need to pass it in yet. Eddie has some new ideas, but his boss doesn't want to hear it. Eddie finds his old Italian grammar books and learns Italian. He talks with an old friend in Bologna. He goes out to dinner and spends the whole night and next day talking and being the center of attention. |
Eddie finishes his book in four days and hands it into his shocked publisher. He gets a haircut, works out and gets new clothes. He learns french and uses it at a nightclub to have sex with a woman in the bathroom. He wins at cards. He has deep conversations with his parents about his aunt's tumor and a stock broker about the market. |
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Eddie meets a French woman at a bar. They go out and he wows her with his knowledge. She invites him up to her room. She is from Paris and is in New York for another week. They spend several days together. Eddie learns French and she falls in love with him. He has to convince her not to leave her life in Paris for him. |
Eddie talks to a girl in a bar in french. He has sex with her in the bathroom stall.
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Eddie talks to Bob Holland, a man who day trades on the internet to learn the ins and out of how to do it. He goes home and uses the left over money to start trading. He has $7000 dollars to start. He buys a bunch of stocks and makes $13,000 in profit his first day. He pushes his earnings to $35,000 the second day. |
Eddie just decides to start playing the stock market. He uses $800 dollars from Vernon's money and starts trading. He makes $2000 the first day and $7500 the next day. |
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Eddie asks Nestor, who works at the local diner if he knows anyone who can loan him some money. He tells him that if he doesn't pay the Russians will cut him at the waist and peel his skin up over his head and tie it in a knot and he will suffocate. He meets Gennady and sits with him. He asks for $75,000 and he refuses because he says he doesn't like Eddie. Eddie then tells him he is writing a book about the Russian mob and convinces Gennady to help him and that it might become a movie. He lies that he needs the money to cover gambling loses. He is interested and decides to give him the money. He offers to up it to 100,000 and Eddie agrees. He waits a half an hour and then gets the money in an envelope. |
The guy at the diner is named Lib and Eddie talks with Gennady. He tells him he needs $100,000 for the stock market. Gennady says no at first, but then Eddie tells him he has been successful and then Gennady thinks he has a fix in the system to help him make money. We next see Eddie sitting on a park bench. Gennady gives him a brown paper bag and tells him if he doesn't pay it back he will skin him and tie it in a knot so he suffocates.
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Eddie starts Day Trading at LaFayette after six days he has over one million dollars in his account. |
By the end of the first week he is up over two million. |
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Eddie meets Carl Van Loon for drinks with Kevin. He chats with Carl and impresses him enough that Carl invites him back to his apartment. They walk there. There they meet Carl's 19 year old daughter Ginny. Eddie chats with her for a few minutes, then Carl comes back. He gives Eddie some papers to look at. Eddie figures out the best and worst options in the deal, and again Carl is impressed. He tells Eddie that he is working on a merger with Hank Atwood regarding a big Internet firm. He wants Eddie to be in on the meeting. |
Eddie meets Carl for drinks where he describes his method for making trades. He gets a ride home in Carl's limo. During the ride Carl gives him some papers and asks Eddie's opinion. Eddie figures out that the companies he is looking at aren't the real question, but it is part of a merger Carl is working on with Hank Atwood. Carl decides to give Eddie a shot and sets up a meeting to discuss the merger the next day.
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After his initial meeting with Carl, Eddie leaves and feels dizzy. He loses a little bit of time, so he eats and goes home to look over the paper work for the merger with Atwood. He takes more MDT-48 and then goes out for a drink. He starts jumping forward and losing time. He has dinner with a bunch of art people. He meets a Mexican painter and his wife Donatella Alvarez. He jumps time again and he is leaving a hotel room. He has lost 8 hours of time. |
Right after his meeting he starts jumping through time. He sees himself with a blonde and is having sex with her in a hotel room. Then he is leaving the hotel with a limp. He beats up a group of men in the subway by remembering Bruce Lee movies he watched. He has lost 18 hours of time. |
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Eddie meets with Carl and has taken MDT-48 and is briefing Carl on the best way to handle the merger. Carl is impressed, but before Hank gets there Eddie hears someone talking behind him about Donatella Alvarez. She has been hit in the head and is in a coma. She was found in a hotel room downtown. Eddie takes off. |
Eddie wakes up and is totally unprepared for the meeting. He doesn't take an NZT-48. He tries to get out of the meeting, but Doyle insists. He meets Carl and has a terrible meeting. He sees on a TV that the blonde has been murdered. He leaves and pukes on the sidewalk.
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This doesn't happen. |
Eddie is being followed by a man. He sees him several times, and is being followed when he leaves the hotel room after being with the blonde. |
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Eddie calls Melissa and tells her that Vernon never gave him any drugs. He lies to her and tells her that he only saw him before he died. Then he hangs up. |
Eddie hears a message from Melissa when he returns from the botched meeting with Carl. He picks it up and asks to meet her at a local diner. She agrees.
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The Post wants to write a story about Eddie. He refuses to talk to the reporter. She writes the story anyway, with help from the day traders at LaFayette. Eddie gets out of a cab and is swarmed by reporters wanting to know about him. |
After Eddie and Lindy reconnect, the stop at a newsstand and she sees a story about Eddie in the paper. He seems happy about it. |
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Eddie meets Melissa in a bar. She is overweight and has short hair. She tells him that she took MDT 4 years ago. Another guy taking it died. She tells him about her two daughters. Eddie tells her that he will try to cut down and wean himself off the drug. She gives him her address so he can stay in touch. She leaves. |
Eddie meets Melissa at a diner. She is think and has long hair. She tells him that she took NZT 2 years ago and a lot of people died from it. She says nothing about her kids. She tells him he has to taper off the drug or he will die. She leaves without talking about meeting again.
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Eddie calls Gennady to return his message. He comes over to see him and Eddie offers to write him a check. He laughs and goes to the bank and takes out the first installment of $22,500 that he owes. He gives Gennady the script treatment he wrote the night before about the russian mafia. He leaves him to read it. |
After Eddie returns from meeting Melissa Gennady attacks him on the street. Eddie has a pill of NZT in his hand. Gennady beats him up and take him up to his apartment. Eddie drops the pill and Gennady takes it. Eddie goes to the bank and takes out the $100,000 he owes. Gennady tells Eddie he likes the drug. |
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After meeting with Melissa, Eddie finds Vernon's notebook and starts calling people from his apartment. 3 are dead and the rest are sick. He then notices that 5 of his pills are missing. He suspects Gennady took them when he came to get his money. |
Eddie goes out and starts calling the people from a park bench. He does this before meeting with Melissa. The last call he makes causes the phone of a man following him to ring. He chases him and Eddie loses him before he meets Melissa.
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This doesn't happen. |
After meeting with Melissa, Eddie is very sick and goes to Lindy's office. He needs her to get his pills. She goes to her apartment when he stashed them. She is being followed, so Eddie tells her to take a pill. She does and uses her sharpened mind to escape. Then she dumps Eddie. |
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Eddie had been taking 2 pills a day, and cuts back to half and pill and then one pill to reduce the side effects. When he takes only one pill he is no longer smart. He eventually talks to a former customer of Vernon's who tells him he can take a drug called Dexeron that will keep the side effects at bay. He takes three MDT pills along with the Dexeron and returns to being super smart. |
Eddie had doubled his dosage causing the side effects. He collapses at Lindy's work and has been off NZT for a few days. He gets more and takes a single pill. He is back to normal. He then realizes that he can take one pill a day, and as long as he eats regularly and doesn't drink any booze he will not experience any side effects. Taking only one pill keeps him super smart.
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Eddie is off MDT because of the blackouts. When Gennady comes for the second payment, he reveals to Eddie that he took the pills and wants more. He threatens Eddie with a knife and Eddie tells him it will take him some time to get more. Gennady tells him to get him 50 or more pills, but Eddie says he can only get 10. |
Gennady comes to Eddie after Lindy dumps him the second time. Eddie is back on NZT. Gennady tells him he wants more of the drug or he will kill him. Eddie gives Gennady a few pills to keep him off his back. |
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Eddie realizes that without MDT he can't work for Carl Van Loon. He goes to his apartment to tell him, but has a panic attack. He meets Ginny Van Loon and she tells him he looks bad. He goes to LaFayette trading to try it without the super smarts. He is still taking one pill but it isn't helping him. He buys a bunch of tech stocks and then has a panic attack. He leaves the trading floor and returns home. When he gets there he sees on the television that the stock market has crashed. The tech bubble has burst and he lost all his money. |
This doesn't happen.
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There is a situation developing between the US and Mexico. The US Secretary of defense said some disparaging things about Mexico. The attack on Donatella Alvarez, who was Mexican causes a serious rift and there are outbreaks of violence. |
None of this happens. |
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Eddie finds Deke Tauber's name in Vernon's notebook. He has become a guru of sorts. Eddie contacts a private investigator that is looking for kids who have entered Deke's cult. He gets the phone records and they find Vernon's associate, Todd who works at United Labtech. They go there, but find out Todd doesn't work there anymore. Eddie figures out that Deke must have been giving the people MDT so they could start a new life. Sure enough Eddie calls the other names on the phone records, people who are big time executives, and they are all out sick because of the stop of the MDT supply. |
This doesn't happen.
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Carl's Company is setting up the merger between Hank Atwood's company MCL and Dan Bloom's company Abraxas. |
Carl's company is merging with Hank Atwood's company. |
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The merger is successful. |
On the day the merger is supposed to happen, Hank Atwood is too sick to show up. His wife shows up and says they want to merge, but it will have to wait.
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The Secretary of Defense and the head of the drug company that made MDT are brothers. |
Neither of these people is mentioned. |
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Eddie wants to blackmail Eiben-Chemcorp, the maker of MDT to give him more. He contacts a lawyer who is suing the company because of another drug and tries to find out who he can contact. He never gets in touch with anyone. |
None of that happens. Eddie contacts a chemist and has him analyze the NZT and offers him 2 million dollars if he can duplicate it.
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Eddie returns to his apartment and the doorman tells him that the delivery people just left. He enters his apartment and finds it ransacked and his MDT pills are gone. He gets a phone call, and the man says that the experiment is over. They have been following him since Vernon's and wanted to use him as an experiment, but now that he has talked to the lawyer, it is over. |
Eddie has to go to a police lineup for the murder investigation. The lawyer takes his jacket so he can stand in the line. He isn't ID'd by the witness, so he is free to go. Eddie has the NZT pills in a secret compartment of his jacket, and he later realizes that the pills are missing. The merger is leaked and Eddie sees his Lawyer is actually the lawyer of Hank Atwood. He stole the pills for his client. |
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After Eddie gets the call and realizes that the pills are gone, he waits in his apartment. Gennady shows up and asks when he can meet the dealer. Eddie tells him it won't happen, and Gennady punches him. Eddie grabs a knife and stabs him and he dies. Eddie flees. |
Eddie had hired some bodyguards to protect him. Gennady killed them and sent Eddie a package containing their hands. Eddie waits in his secure apartment and contemplates suicide because his pills are gone. He hears Gennady trying to break in. He breaks the door down and shows up with his two goons. Gennady gets ready to torture Eddie and has his goons look for the drugs. Eddie stabs Gennady and drinks his blood so he can absorb the traces of NZT still in Gennady's system. he then kills the two thugs and escapes.
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This doesn't happen. |
Hank Atwood dies, and Eddie tells the man how was following him that the lawyer took the pills that were supposed to cure Hank. The man breaks in and Eddie gets the pills back. |
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Eddie withdrew 500,000 dollars and goes to see Melissa. He leaves her the briefcase with the money and a note. He sees on television that someone at the hotel where the merger was held recognized him and the cops went to question him and found Gennady's body. So he is wanted. He drives to Vermont. |
None of this happens.
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Eddie writes his story, and takes the last of the MDT pills he took from Gennady after he killed him. He waits for his inevitable death. He watches TV and sees the president. He thinks he looks like he is on MDT. |
12 months later, and Eddie is running for Senate. Carl Van Loon finds him and tries to blackmail him because he bought the lab that was making NZT. Eddie tells him he doesn't need it anymore. He might be lying. |