Brian Helgeland has been chatting about the aborted sequel to L.A. Confidential, that didn’t get past the pitch stage.
L.A. Confidential, the 90s classic directed by Curtis Hanson and written by Brian Helgeland – based on the novel by James Ellroy – followed a murder investigation which gradually turns into a corruption case. It catapulted Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce to (further) fame and was nominated for nine Oscars. Helgeland won an Adapted Screenplay Oscar while the Supporting Actress Oscar went to Kim Basinger. All in the year that Titanic otherwise pretty much swept the board.
See also: James Ellroy still doesn’t like the movie of his novel, L A Confidential
Helgeland recently chatted to Deadline about their pitch for a sequel, saying that “James Ellroy and I worked out an elaborate pitch for L.A. Confidential 2 that takes place during the Patty Hearst (era), when the Symbionese Liberation Army came down to L.A., and we had Guy Pearce attached and Russell (Crowe) and Chadwick Boseman playing a young cop working for Mayor Bradley.
We pitched it to everyone. We had to go to Warner Bros first and Warner Bros is like ‘we don’t make movies like this’. Ellroy is a performance artist and he would do the pitch; and it was the most amazing pitch”.
However, it seems that executives were less than invested, as Helgeland went on to claim that “our executive at Netflix fell asleep. They fell asleep and nodded off during the pitch. I got home, and said ‘we can’t do that anymore’.
Helgeland’s next film is Finestkind, a crime thriller which stars Ben Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Jenna Ortega and Toby Wallace. It will stream on Paramount+ in November. Odd that it never landed at Netflix, really…
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