Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street 2” Set to Fail?

Despite winning an Academy Award for Best Actor and being nominated for Best Picture, “Wall Street” got mixed reviews from critics when it was released. One of the biggest complaints came from those who thought the film’s director, Oliver Stone, was too moralizing. However, re-watching the film in today’s economic climate leads the viewer to understand, in retrospect, the prophetic nature of the movie. Gordon Gekko, is symbolic of how the “greed is good” mentality of Wall Street has come to erode the American free market system. It seems ironic at this point that the Wall Street Journal’s review in December 1987 read “Wall Street is a silly, pretentious melodrama that panders to the current fascination with insider trading.” The film is evidence that the government, the media and the public had a clear idea of what was going on years before the collapse and did little to prevent it.

Stone is known for asserting his own political opinions in his work and in this case he was right on the money. “Wall Street’s” world of corporate greed still exists over twenty years later as we can see from recent headlines, from Bernie Madoff’s sentencing to the government bailouts of major US banks. In response to the current economic turmoil, Stone is now gearing up to direct a sequel, tentatively entitled Wall Street 2.

Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily blog recently reported new plot details for Wall Street 2. The time period is June 2008 with Michael Douglas reprising his role as Gordon Gekko, who has just been released from prison after serving 20+ years for security fraud and insider trading. Gekko comes back as an outsider but sees the warning signs of a potential crash looming and tries to call attention to the impending danger. His words of caution, however, are ignored. Fresh from “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen,” Shia LaBeouf will co-star as a young Wall Street trader who is engaged/married to Gekko’s estranged daughter, with whom Gekko is desperately trying to reconnect. LaBeouf’s character has aspirations of becoming a major player in the finance world but his mentor unexpectedly commits suicide, derailing his plans for climbing the corporate ladder. Suspecting foul play, his prime suspect is a stock-shorting hedge fund manager, potentially to be played by Javier Bardem, who also played a cold-blooded killer in No Country for Old Men. LaBeouf’s character elicits the help of Gekko in avenging the death of his mentor, in exchange for helping Gekko reconcile with his daughter.

The media has already expressed concern with the plot synopsis of the new film because the original “Wall Street’s” focus was on Gekko’s ruthlessness. Gekko was the ultimate corporate villain and many fear that the sequel will make him appear emotional and helpless, which they believe would destroy the best part of the original film. As New York Magazine puts it, “no one wants to see the redemption of Gordon Gekko.” However, with an all-star cast and Oliver Stone at the helm, there’s still a great deal of potential for box office success.

The second draft of the screenplay will be written by Allan Loeb (21 and Things We Lost in the Fire) and Edward R. Pressman is set to produce. Filming is set to start in late August and the studio, 20th Century Fox, is aiming for a February 2010 release date.

Any suggestions on a title or who should be cast in the role of Gekko’s daughter? Sound off in the comments section.