Amazon MGM’s United Artists has reportedly announced a reboot of Basic Instinct, one of the most provocative thrillers of the early 1990s.
The 1992 erotic thriller starred Michael Douglas as a detective who becomes involved with the prime suspect of his murder investigation, played by Sharon Stone. The film went on to become a box office hit, earning over $350m worldwide.
The original film’s screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas, has returned to pen the new screenplay under a deal worth up to $4m, according to The Wrap, which first reported the news.
While not much is known about the forthcoming reboot, including whether Stone could reprise her breakout role as Catherine Tramell, a source familiar with the deal said the film is expected to be “anti-woke”.
The Independent has reached out to Amazon MGM for comment.
In 2019, Stone said she doubted whether the film could have been made in the present.
“I think Basic Instinct was made at the exact right moment in history because it captured all our fears and doubts and the moment of change of power for women,” Stone told Allure.
“It's still an intriguing film, but could it be made now? I doubt that it would have any form of the sensationalism it had at the time. When I began my career, there were only two ways we were allowed to sit: cross at the ankles or ankles under the chair.”
Basic Instinct has been the subject of controversy over the years, particularly over the scene that sees Stone crossing and uncrossing her legs in a room full of men during an interrogation.
In her 2021 memoir, Stone claimed she had no idea how exposed her genitals would be in the now famous uncrossed-legs scene where lead Michael Douglas first meets her character, Catherine Tramell.
“After we shot Basic Instinct, I got called in to see it,” she wrote. “Not on my own with the director, as one would anticipate, given the situation that has given us all pause, so to speak, but with a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project.
“That was how I saw my vagina-shot for the first time, long after I’d been told, ‘We can’t see anything – I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on.’
“I went to the projection booth, slapped [director] Paul [Verhoeven] across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer, Marty Singer,” Stone continued.
She also said in 2019, while accepting her Woman of the Year accolade at the Berlin GQ Men of the Year Awards that Verhoeven asked her to take off her underwear since they were visible in the shot.
“Some years ago I was sitting on a sound stage, and my director said, ‘Can you hand me your underpants because we're seeing them in the scene and you shouldn't have underpants on, but we won't see anything,’” she said.
“I said, ‘Sure.’ I didn't know this moment would change my life.”
“Sharon is lying,” Verhoeven, 87, said in 2017. “Any actress knows what she’s going to see if you ask her to take off her underwear and point there with the camera.”
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