2 months ago
Tom Wolfe’s incendiary ‘80s NYC satire The Bonfire of nan Vanities is being turned into an Apple TV series. David E. Kelley (Presumed Innocent) is penning nan episodes, pinch The Batman helmer Matt Reeves aboard to nonstop and beryllium executive producer.
The bid hails from Warner Bros Television and it marks nan continuation of a burgeoning narration betwixt Apple TV and Kelley, nan Emmy-winning showrunner down nan acclaimed adjustment of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent. Kelley’s nan writer and executive shaper of Margo’s Got Money Troubles, which stars Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman and which Apple TV premieres April 15. It’s Kelley’s 2nd move adapting a sprawling Wolfe tale: he was creator/showrunner of A Man In Full, which starred Jeff Daniels and Diane Lane for Netflix.
The Bonfire of nan Vanities has a colorful cinematic history. Wolfe lacerated ‘80s NYC precocious society, from nan emergence of Wall Street “masters of nan universe” traders and raiders to their stick-thin “social x-ray” wives and mistresses, to nan simmering group tensions betwixt moneyed Manhattan and nan person nots successful nan outlying boroughs, down to lightning rod activistic leaders who rode group volatility to nationalist stardom.
The communicative unfolds arsenic a Wall Street enslaved trader named Sherman McCoy, nan quintessential maestro of nan universe, lives a charmed life until he takes a incorrect turn, ends up successful nan Bronx, and his frightened mistress takes nan instrumentality and runs complete a Black man who approached nan couple. Cue nan mayhem.
Published successful 1987, Wolfe’s caller captured a infinitesimal New York, astatine a clip erstwhile Wall Street titans for illustration Michael Milken became stars, and activists for illustration Al Sharpton made names for themselves seizing connected powder keg situations. Like nan lawsuit of Tawana Brawley, a young Black female who claimed to person been assaulted and smeared pinch feces by a group of achromatic men, and nan calamity of Michael Griffith, a young man deed and killed by a car, fleeing a pack of achromatic teens who had beaten nan 23-year aged and his friends extracurricular a pizza parlor successful nan achromatic neighborhood. The caller utilized each these tensions to propel a study of greed, avarice, and group divisions betwixt nan haves and person nots, starring to McCoy getting his comeuppance.
The book was quickly acquired by Warner Bros, which group Brian DePalma to nonstop a movie which seemed to person blockbuster written each complete it. Tom Hanks played McCoy, Melanie Griffith played his mistress, and Bruce Willis played a scurrilous journalist successful nan halfway of it all. Confident nan movie would beryllium a hit, DePalma allowed Wall Street Journal professional Julie Salamon afloat entree connected nan group to chronicle nan making of nan film.
Bonfire became 1 of nan large flops of its era, and Salamon was nan only winner. Her expose, The Devil’s Candy,’ becoming a bestseller and seminal study of what tin spell incorrect successful moviemaking, contempt nan champion efforts of apical filmmaking and character talent.
Wolfe’s books person ever been challenging adaptations, though his abstraction saga The Right Stuff became a terrific movie nether nan guidance of Phil Kaufman. A Man successful Full went done respective iterations earlier Kelley nailed it arsenic a series; others for illustration nan LSD-fueled The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, is successful nan midst of galore attempts to compression a movie retired of it astir LSD-proponent One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest writer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, pinch Oscar winning Oppenheimer shaper Charles Roven nan astir caller to return connected nan material.
Two and a Half Men’s Chuck Lorre took a erstwhile ace astatine turning The Bonfire of nan Vanities into a constricted bid astatine Amazon, backmost successful 2016. It stalled.
The bid exec producers will beryllium Reeves and Sarah Geismer done his 6th and Idaho Productions banner, and Matthew Tinker done David E. Kelley Productions.
Kelley is repped by CAA and Gendler Kelly & Cunningham, Reeves by CAA and Jackoway Austen.
