It seems like we’ve heard about notorious** Basic Instinct**/Sliver/Jade writer Joe Eszterhas being back before (in fact, it was 2009 with the announcement of his script about the Virgin of Guadalupe). But very little seems to happen after that. Now he’s back again with a screenplay that sees him returning very much to his old stomping grounds, a tale of sex and betrayal called Lust.
Yes, much in the same way that Nora Ephron could produce a film called Quirky Romantic Issues and Uwe Boll could bring out Utter Rubbish, Lust sounds like pure, unfiltered Eszterhas. The erotic thriller will focus on a beautiful 30-year-old woman seemingly in a committed marriage with an older fashion magazine publisher. But then she visits LA on a business trip and is seduced by a younger playboy. Oh, and he in turn has a sexy Russian assistant harbouring a massive and – we predict – unhinged crush on her boss, leading to her videotaping him in the act and getting the recording to the woman’s husband…
“There are a lot twists and turns that only Joe Eszterhas can do,” says producer Scott Steindorff, who last brought us The Lincoln Lawyer. “There’s reason why he was the top writer for many years: the guy knows how to write. And there hasn’t been a great sexual thriller since Unfaithful.”
The pair plans to drum up $30 million in financing once they’ve tracked down a director and cast to make this thing happen. Can the bonkbusting allure of the Eszterhas thriller be returned to its former glory? We’ll see…