“Greed is Good.” Director Oliver Stone Set To Make Wall Street 2

The  movie that defined corporate greed in the 1980s, providing  a window into a world of luxury, power and cutthroat betrayal has a sequel in the works. With a lack of creativity and originality in Hollywood these days, remakes and sequels are making up a significant portion of our movie-going appetite, so this is no surprise. “Controversial” filmmaker Oliver Stone (JFK, Natural Born Killers) wrote and directed Wall Street, which was nominated for several Oscars in 1987. Michael Douglas of course took home the Best Actor statue.

Entertainment Weekly has the word that the long-discussed sequel is well on its way, 22 years in the making. Michael Douglas is set to reprise his role as corporate kingpin Gordon Gekko. Transformers hot shot Shia LaBeouf is in talks to play a young trader in the sequel, which is set 20 years after the first installment. It’s undeniably fitting timing considering the recent events on Wall Street and its integral involvement in the downfall of the economy.

Douglas feels that its needed. “I think it’s time to take another hard look at trading and the economy and what went wrong in the last few years,” he said. “Everybody’s talking about the economy and people are scrutinizing it. Whenever I mention Wall Street 2, everybody goes, ‘Yeah. Interesting. I’d see that.’” BTW, I pray to God that Wall Street 2 is not the title of this film. Being a film of such serious nature and magnitude, a simple “2″ is really weak and lame.

So needless to say it’ll be fascinating to see how Stone’s personal opinions regarding the country’s current political state affects the outcome script. I’m sure Stone will enlist the counsel of real traders and brokers who lived the life over the past few years, getting some true stories of what actually happened to paint a more accurate picture. Maybe Gekko will now have moved up to the head of AIG and LaBeouf will be an intern being shown the ropes. Fox wants to get the ball rolling on this ASAP with shooting to begin as early as this summer. Stay tuned to The Mash for updates.

What Do You Think? Discuss.