One man who will not be coming to save “Wall Street” is Oliver Stone. Last fall, as the economic situation went from bad to straight up scary, Fox announced it was fast-tracking development of a sequel to the director’s 1987 classic about ruthless businessmen in shiny suits. Now, in an exclusive interview with MTV News, Stone revealed he will have nothing to do with the project.
“I dropped out,” he said. “I didn’t want to do another ‘Wall Street’ movie. I think everything I had to stay came through.”
There was a time, however, when he and fellow scriptwriter Stanley Weiser discussed picking up the story again. “We invested this a while ago,” Stone said, “but we couldn’t come up with the right way to go about it. I think there’s an interesting movie to be made in there. I’m just not interested because it’s so complex now. I don’t think people can understand security derivatives. But these types of people [on Wall Street] -- essentially it’s the same mentality.”
One project that Stone is sticking by is “Pinkville,” a feature about the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which was set to film with Bruce Willis, Woody Harrelson and Cam Gigandet until the writers’ strike interrupted development in late 2007. “‘Pinkville’ is not dead,” Stone said of what would be his fourth film about that war. “I own it. I could activate it again. I don’t know if the time is right now with the Iraq War still going on, but I love that project and it’s an important one. My Lai is a forgotten piece of history that’s crucial to remember. You never know, these things come alive.”
For now, however, the Oscar-winning director has no definite plans to jump back into a feature film after last October’s Bush biopic “W” (out now on DVD) and is instead focusing on a pair of documentaries. The smaller of the two centers on Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, while the larger one remains shrouded in mystery.
“It’s on the concept of history,” Stone said. “I don’t want to talk about it too much. This is not Ken Burns style. This is not America first, ethno-centric stuff. This is about the serious, objective view of the place of empire.”
Both documentaries were financed abroad and conceived to play on the small screen. But Stone is skeptical that either one will ever cross airwaves or cable lines in the States. “It’s not necessarily made for American television,” he said. “Eventually they might find their way to DVD here. But MTV might show it -- you never know! MTV History will come in. Talk to your bosses.”
Is “Wall Street” without Stone sacrilegious? What about without Michael Douglas (not yet signed on) or Charlie Sheen (reportedly not involved)? And should Stone have an opportunity to show his documentaries on American television?
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