Fox Searchlight May Produce Imperial Bedrooms, The Bret Easton Ellis 'Sequel' To Less Than Zero

Bret Easton Ellis has a long history with Hollywood. Over twenty years ago he was less than impressed with the film version of his novel Less Than Zero, though thirteen years later Mary Harron would adapt his American Psycho into a film that quickly attained cult classic status and The Rules of Attraction generally stayed true to his intentions. Last year's The Informers swung the pendulum back towards crap, but there is reason to hope for some of his upcoming projects.

Ellis has a couple of movies in the pipeline, and now his upcoming novel Imperial Bedrooms may become a film as well.

The LA Times reports that at a Q&A during last weekend's LAT Festival of Books, Ellis talked about his work in Hollywood, speaking in part about Imperial Bedrooms, his novel which will be published later this year, and which continues the story of Clay from Less Than Zero.

And at Thompson on Hollywood Cameron Carlson reports that Ellis "speculated that Fox Searchlight might make his upcoming Hollywood novel Imperial Bedrooms (his seventh) into a film. Most of what is written about Hollywood is satire, he said, but the real Hollywood isn't funny."

Working as a screenwriter has to be a rarely fulfilling endeavor for a successful novelist. (There's so much interference and loss of control.) So I wonder if having a movie made of Imperial Bedrooms, which deals with Clay's life as a screenwriter amidst a collection of Hollywood characters,  might help Ellis purge some of his ugly history in filmmaking. If the movie is good, that is.

Ellis also talked about Lunar Park, which would adapt his 2005 novel that features some honest and many invented autobiographical elements. Benicio Del Toro was once attached to play the Ellis character, but the author now says that he thought Del Toro was miscast and that Jude Law may replace him.