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New York Times Blogs – Actor Javier Bardem has turned down a role in the sequel to Oliver Stone’s seminal 1980s treatise on greed, “Wall Street.” The Oscar winner was to have played the world’s villain du jour: a hedge fund manager. Forbes reported that the actor’s publicist said he turned down the role due to scheduling conflicts.
It was reported in June that Mr. Bardem was circling the project although he was not yet officially cast. Starring in the film are Michael Douglas, who will reprise his role as Gordon Gekko, and Shia LaBeouf. Shooting is expected to start next month.
Huffingtonpost.com – I’m told that screenwriter Allan Loeb (21, Things We Lost In The Fire) will hand in his second draft of the long-awaited Wall Street2 to 20th Century Fox later this week. (Although the great Stanley Weiser and his film school pal Oliver Stone were credited as writers of the original pic, Stephen Schiff was first to script the sequel.) I heard Loeb’s first draft was "so great" that Stone didn’t feel the need to touch it — yet. But no one expects the director to keep hands off on the second draft since principal photography starts on August 10th. The film’s release is now planned for February 2010. So here’s the oh-so-secret plot of Wall Street 2 and who’s playing what:
Michael Douglas, as everyone already knows, reprises his Best Actor Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko. But what hasn’t been reported is that, as the movie begins, it’s 21 years later and Mr. Greed Is Good has finished serving his prison sentence. He finds himself on the fringe of the financial community. ("Kinda like Jim Cramer or Mike Milken after their disgrace," an insider with the pic tells me.) Gekko is cautioning Wall Street that the "end is coming" — but nobody is listening. So Gordon is obsessed with trying to repair his ruptured relationship with his daughter. That juicy actress role isn’t cast yet. (But I’d love it if Oliver had the balls to bring back Sean Young as Mom in spite of their notorious falling out during the filming of the original.)
Inside Bay Area – Not Terribly long ago all that was wrong with Wall Street was embodied in the character Gordon Gekko as portrayed by actor Michael Douglas in the smash hit movie, "Wall Street."
For those who missed the film, Gekko was a suave, sophisticated, amoral and insensitive worshipper of money, lots and lots of money, to be fleeced without compunction or concern for legal consequences from unsuspecting sheep who invested in his manipulative schemes. In other words, he was a sociopath who adequately resembled nothing so much as the fictitious monsters created by the likes of Frank Norris, Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell for their early 20th century muckraking exposes about the exploitive evils of American enterprise.
