Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas says his ‘anti-woke’ Basic Instinct reboot is ‘mostly done’, though director Emerald Fennell has denied having anything to do with it. A director known for making her own button-pushing movies, Emerald Fennell could end up making a sequel to one of the most controversial thrillers of the 1990s: Basic Instinct. Or at ... Basic Instinct | Erotic thriller reboot ‘mostly done’ says screenwriter
Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas says his ‘anti-woke’ Basic Instinct reboot is ‘mostly done’, though director Emerald Fennell has denied having anything to do with it.
A director known for making her own button-pushing movies, Emerald Fennell could end up making a sequel to one of the most controversial thrillers of the 1990s: Basic Instinct.
Or at least, that’s according to screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who wrote both the 1992 original, directed by Paul Verhoeven, and is writing a belated reboot – one that has nothing to do with the 2006 sequel that time has quietly memory-holed.
Speaking to The Guardian, Eszterhas provided an update on this odd-sounding project – we’ll get to why in a mo – and who might direct.
“The producers are negotiating with a really interesting director – a Brit, Emerald Fennell – who did Promising Young Woman and Wuthering Heights,” Eszterhas said. “Her sensibility is exactly right. She’s someone who is not afraid of controversy and sexuality. So I’m thrilled by that. I hope it works out.”
There’s only one problem with this claim: hours after the interview was published, The Guardian edited in an update: “Representatives of Fennell denied she was involved in any way.”
It’s the latest twist in a project that has a number of question marks hanging over it.
The 1992 film made a star out of Sharon Stone, who played the enigmatic novelist Catherine Tramell. She has a habit of writing cheap thrillers whose events parallel real-world murders – including that of her latest rock star lover, who was stabbed to death with an ice pick mid-coitus. Randy detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) investigates, only to fall wildly in love with the prime suspect.
Estzerhas’ story was controversial among LGBTQ+ groups for its depiction of Tramell as a bisexual sociopath – so controversial that members of said groups began disrupting the film while it was still in production. Nevertheless, it was one of the year’s biggest hits, spawning the ill-fated sequel (again starring Stone) directed by Michael Caton-Jones.
The new Basic Instinct will ignore that movie, instead telling a separate film in which Catherine Tramell is “the main co-star of the picture,” per an Eszterhas interview from last year. He’s also said that it’ll be somehow ‘anti-woke’ and that it’s got some sort of supernatural slant to it. “There’s a demonic element to it that I think will be spooky,” he said.
If Tramell’s written into the new script, then its filmmakers may have to find someone else to play her.
“There’s not going to be a Basic Instinct reboot,” Stone told The Guardian last year. “I hate to break it to you, but Joe Eszterhas couldn’t write himself out of a Walgreens drug store.”
Oof.
Amazon MGM paid a reported $2m for the script, however, with another $2m going to Eszterhas if the film gets made – he always did have a knack for attracting vast pay cheques. With those numbers in mind, the studio will surely want to get something out of their investment, so maybe we’ll see this curious-sounding erotic reboot at some point over the next few years.
As for why Eszterhas has billed it as anti-woke, it’s because people today are “terrified of confrontation and disagreement,” he says.
We’ll wait and see what director – if any – will accept the challenge of shooting the veteran screenwriter’s script.
