Evidenced by the performance of Sinners (and even more recently, F1), audiences are actually hungry for original ideas, notwithstanding a marketplace the remains glutted with sequels, reboots, and other IP.
So what’s the obvious answer? For Amazon MGM, it’s to pay an 80-year-old screenwriter with a history of box-office bombs as much as $4 million to write an anti-woke screenplay for a reboot/remake of a movie that was never woke to begin with.
Amazon MGM has hired Joe Eszterhas — the hitmaker behind such films as Showgirls, Sliver, and, uh, An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn — to write an “anti-woke” screenplay for a remake/reboot of his one hit film, Basic Instinct, which is mostly only remembered for Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs. Real woke stuff!
The movie is 32 years old, and Eszterhas hasn’t written a hit since. Who better to bring back?
“To those who question what an 80-year-old man is doing writing a sexy, erotic thriller: the rumors of my cinematic impotence are exaggerated and ageist,” Eszterhas said in a statement to IndieWire. “I call my writing partner the TWISTED LITTLE MAN and he lives somewhere deep inside me. He was born 29 and he will die 29 and he tells me he is ‘sky high up’ to write this piece and provide viewers with a wild and orgasmic ride. That makes me very happy.”
A wild and orgasmic ride? From Eszterhas? No thanks.
He will, however, be paid $2 million to write the screenplay, and as much as $4 million if it actually gets made. And here I thought that the streamers were cutting back.
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