©Courtesy of Carolco Pictures
Eighty-year-old Joe Eszterhas, who wrote the screenplay for Basic Instinct back in 1992, has just made a $4 million deal with Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists to write what has been termed an “anti-woke” reboot of the classic film, which has been described as a sexually explicit riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Eszterhas was quoted as telling The Wrap, which broke the news: “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. 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.”
It’s also being speculated that Sharon Stone could reprise the role of Catherine Tramell in the reboot. She was portrayed as queer in the 1992 movie, unleashing a storm of controversy in both the feminist and LGBTQ communities over fears this would lead to the stereotyping of homosexuals as predatory.
The deal is another indicator of Amazon MGM’s stronger commitment to its film offerings, which follows in the heels of its recent acquisition of rights to the James Bond franchise. Next year, Amazon MGM will also release Project Hail Mary, a sci-fi thriller.
Basic Instinct, budgeted at $49 million, went on to earn $353 million globally–that’s $800 million in 2025 dollars. A 2006 sequel, however, was neither a critical nor a financial success. Eszterhas received a record $3 million for his original Basic Instinct script back in 1992. He also got $2 million for his Showgirls script, also directed by Paul Verhoeven, and a cool $2.5 million for a four-page outline of One Night Stand. He wrote about his lucrative career in his best-selling memoir Hollywood Animal, which was published in 2004. His later memoir Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith, describes his later return to the Catholicism of his youth.