It’s long since been established that Hollywood no longer possesses the higher brain functions necessary to create anything even remotely resembling an original idea. However, what Hollywood lacks in original ideas, they more than make up for with brilliant strategies for getting the American public to pay up for the same material over and over again. Whereas that used to just equate to churning out sequels, the brain trust that runs the Left Coast has recently stumbled onto the fact that moviegoers will show up in droves if they are able to reunite entire casts for their creatively redundant projects (see: the recent $70.9 million opening weekend for Fast & Furious). However, we’re hopeful that this recent “Aha!†moment won’t just mean that the likes of Elijah Wood and Tea Leoni will soon team up again for Deep Impact 2: Even Deeper, but that we’ll actually be privileged enough to see fascinating casts get back together onscreen after a substantial number of years apart. In fact, that idea seems to be the very genesis of Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel Imperial Bedrooms, a sequel to Less Than Zero that’s due in May 2010.
On the rare chance that none of you remember the seminal 1987 film, it starred Robert Downey Jr., James Spader, Andrew McCarthy, and Jami Gertz as a bunch of drug-addicted burgeoning yuppies living their twisted lives in the Hollywood Hills. And according to B.E.E., its sequel is set in the present day and will revolve not only around how this crew of ne’er-do-wells survived the eighties, but what they’re up to today:
“I first thought [they’d be dead] when I started thinking about it; when I began to outline the book and figure out who’s going to be around and who’s not – some of the main people are going to be okay,†Easton Ellis laughed. “There was some supporting cast that I realized was expendable – you knew something bad was going to happen to them. But the leads? Yeah, they kind of stuck around.â€
Although it’s been a while since we’ve seen Jami Gertz appear in anything noteworthy, the prospect of seeing that triumvirate of still-potent male eighties acting icons teaming up again is enough to make us forgive Universal for reigniting the star power of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. And while they’re at it, we think that whoever is genius enough to pick up the rights for this film should go right ahead and reunite the Bangles, too; after all, their cover of “Hazy Shade of Winter†that appeared on the Less Than Zero soundtrack contains one of our favorite guitar licks of all time (bless you, Vicki Peterson!). Let’s make this happen, people!
Bret Easton Ellis Finishes ‘Less Than Zero’ Sequel, Wants Robert Downey Jr. Back [Movies Blog/MTV]