The classic ’90s erotic thriller Basic Instinct may be getting a fresh new update, and the filmmaker behind Promising Young Woman and Wuthering Heights may be at the helm.
This according to Joe Eszterhas, who wrote the original Basic Instinct for director Paul Verhoeven. The screenwriter tells The Guardian in a new interview, “The producers are negotiating with a really interesting director – a Brit, Emerald Fennell – who did Promising Young Woman and Wuthering Heights. Her sensibility is exactly right.”
Eszterhas continues, “She’s someone who is not afraid of controversy and sexuality. So I’m thrilled by that. I hope it works out.”
UPDATE – April 7, 2026 – 11:40am ET: According to a statement given to Variety by Emerald Fennell’s representative, “There’s no truth in this. She is not involved in any way.”
The interesting thing to note here is that the Basic Instinct reboot that’s currently in the works at Amazon MGM Studios has been scripted by Joe Eszterhas himself, and he tells The Guardian that his script juggles “copycat serial killers with elements of the supernatural.”
Will Sharon Stone return for the new Basic Instinct movie? According to comments the actress made just last year, that seems highly unlikely. She told The Guardian in August 2025, “I hate to break it to you, but Joe Eszterhas couldn’t write himself out of a Walgreens drug store.”
Sharon Stone did return for Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction back in 2006, however. Joe Eszterhas had nothing to do with the sequel, which failed to make money at the box office.
Stone played Catherine Tramell in both films, a beautiful crime novelist who becomes a suspect when she is linked to the brutal death of a rock star. Investigated by homicide detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas), Catherine seduces him into an intense relationship.
“To those who question what an 80-year-old man is doing writing a sexy, erotic thriller: the rumors of my cinematic impotence are exaggerated and ageist,” Eszterhas said in a statement of his own last year. “I call my writing partner the ‘Twisted Little Man’ and he lives somewhere deep inside me. He was born 29 and he will die 29 and he tells me he is ‘sky high up’ to write this piece and provide viewers with a wild and orgasmic ride. That makes me very happy.”
Stay tuned for more on the Basic Instinct reboot as we learn it.