Oliver Stone Talks 'Wall Street' Sequel

The New York Times has an interesting article today about Oliver Stone and next year's Money Never Sleeps, the Wall Street sequel that might be 20 years later but has not been 20 years in the making. “I thought it was a bubble that was over,” Stone said of the 1980s. “I thought those days were going to come to an end. The excess.” But with the financial crisis of the past couple of years, a new look at the world of Wall Street investors clearly has some relevance. It wasn't automatic that Stone and Michael Douglas would come back after all this time, but with the right script in place, Stone says it gives him an opportunity to critique the most recent Greed is Good generation. "I can't tell you how many young people have come up to me in these years and said, 'I went to Wall Street because of that movie.'" says Stone. "I think the movie was misunderstood because it was about a horrible thing that was going on, about how people would worship money at all costs. In the sequel, Gordon Gekko (Douglas) returns after an extended prison sentence, trying to rebuild a relationship with his daughter (Carey Mulligan), who is now engaged to a rising young Wall Street kid, played by Shia LaBeouf. But that's only half the story. When LaBeouf's mentor is found dead under suspicious circumstances (which may or may not but probably do involve our villain, Josh Brolin), LaBeouf turns to Gekko to get revenge. The article in The Times goes into a lot more depth about how Stone prepped for the movie by interviewing hedge fund managers and imprisoned brokers and more, so if you're into that sort of detail, you should check it out. It's interesting, though, that Stone and both Douglas comment on how audiences got the message of the first movie exactly wrong, and that rather than understanding the dangerous allure of money, they legitimately thought, as Gecko commanded, greed is good.