Eldergays why did Less than Zero flop

They didn't take it far enough.

I loved it -- still do -- so I don't know what to say.

Easton Ellis said there wasn’t one line in the book that made it to the movie. It’s so different. The book is good and dark but the movie amps everything up. The way, way over the top Christmas party that looks more like an MTV staff party than one at somebody’s house. Jami Gertz as a model.

What annoyed me the most is that, in the book, the narrator is bisexual and has flings with guys. In the movie, he is so horrified that his friend is a male prostitute that he vomits when seeing him with a guy. Fuck off, 1980s.

It's not a terrible movie at all, but I think the zeitgeistiness of the novel was felt mostly by critics and far fewer people than the producers imagined.

It's also a navel-gazing story about fairly unlikable characters.

Quentin Tarantino has expressed to many people (including Bret Easton Ellis) that he would like to re-make the film.

The book was so much better.

Because hot, horny, bisexual high schoolers was an IMPOSSIBLE sell in 1987. At least we got the killer Bangles single out of it. If Gugadino's American Psycho happens, a remake could be a hot commodity, and perhaps finally the real version of the book we all have hoped for.

Ditto Rules of Attraction.

The Rules of Attraction movie was pretty good.

American Psycho movie was great, but very tame. I have no confidence that the new one will be full of the violence and sex of the book either. There's just no way we're getting someone's severed head on Patrick's hard cock.

It was miscast except for Downey and James Spader.

[quote] I have no confidence that the new one will be full of the violence and sex of the book either. There's just no way we're getting someone's severed head on Patrick's hard cock.

The prudes! How dare they not show it.

I think that people were under the impression that it was another Brat Pack movie.

My crowd found it-the degradation scenes-laughable.

Downey was miscast. Hardly the type you would whore out but I am sure he loved running lines...

Agreed, R9. “The Rules of Attraction” was rather faithful to the book while having its own perspective. It’s a good book and movie.

There's a ridiculous scene where Jami Geertz goes into a ladies' room at some club and some pretty trendy girl develops a nosebleed from snorting too much cocaine. "Oops... rusty pipes," she giggles apologetically.

It was rated R and covered adult material but starred a bunch of actors popular with teens. I was a teenager at the time, and it seemed too "adult" for me.

As with American Psycho, the main appeal of the book was its extreme shock value, but there was no way you could put them into a Hollywood movie. The makers of the AP film invented a sort of wacky comedy approach that made it a cult classic, but you couldn't really do that with a story about profoundly emotionally disturbed teenagers.

The whole death scene with Julian dying in the car was silly. Julian is in the novel but not really the focal point.

They had to focus on RDJ's character because Andrew McCarthy is deeply insipid.

Clay was supposed to be California gorgeous with questionable morals and loose sexual inhibitions. He was a “player” equally with men and women. Andrew McCarthy’s Clay was a eunuch.

Jami Gertz was miscast.

These two huge problems with the two central characters doomed the movie.

Don’t even get me started about James Van der Beek’s horrid turn in Rules of Attraction. I I absolutely adored the novel and was utterly disappointed in the movie adaptation. They also waited too long to make both movies. The zeitgeist of these early Ellis works was long past by the time the feature films came out.

It was too controversial for conservative people and too sanitized for freaky people.

I agree with folks above that THE RULES OF ATTRACTION is pretty good, but is undermined by focusing on the straight male character’s perspective the most, when it’s pretty clear from the book that that guy is the one who’s most frequently lying in his version of events.

I haven't seen it. How does it compare to 2008's The Informers? I liked the atmosphere and the acting in that movie but I thought the writing was shit. BEE helped write the screenplay.

Tres amusing OP.

In essence, the films failed because the medium of “novel” itself is what made the novels work so well. A novel writer uses the written language to convey tones, vibes, thoughts… this translates well to a movie if it’s a novel in which Things Happen and the plot is the main point. This doesn’t work so well for a novel like Less Than Zero.

I loved it. 80s Los Angeles, sex, drugs, pure decadence. Only thing I would've done different is trade out The Bangles Hazy Shade of Winter for Sheila E's A Love Bizarre.

That girl's Christmas party made me feel very insecure. I put on some Johnny Mathis, display my Department 56 ceramics, make my world famous yule log and invite a few friends over to watch White Christmas.

As an elder I loved it when it came out. I didn’t even think of reading the book. Call me stupid . I was in college and had a lot of other shit to read.

Stellar cast. Andrew McCarthy , Spader, Downey , Jamie Gertz? Meh — didn’t really matter who it was .The homophobic outrage at gay sex was the way it was … at the time !!! I shoukd know. Everything shouldn’t be sanitized to fit “contemporary norms” — whatever that was .

I loved the Christmas party — fun to imagine going to such a party — I was from the wrong side of the tracks but at least I was smart .

Fuck Quentin Tarantino — can’t he leave anything the fuck alone — he and his mishapen face, footbfetish, and mysogony. And sadism. Uma Thurman suffered serious permanent injuries from the shit he put her through to film the kill bill masterpiece

R12 well technically it was due to its large brat pack cast; it just wasn’t Disneyfied under the helm of John Hughes.

No, R28, it shouldn’t be sanitized for contemporary norms but that’s EXACTLY what the screenplay did to the novel.

If you never read the novel, then you’d see there was no homophobia or vomiting at the idea as the main character himself was rather comfortably bisexual.

It’s actually a very depressing movie. I hadn’t read the book when I went to the theater to see it. I remember I walked out and I was like wow that was a downer. I actually enjoyed Rules of attraction a lot better. I love the way it was shot. I just wish they could’ve gotten Christian Bale in a cameo as Bateman. Good music too.

I loved it then and still. Best screen adaptation of his work for me.

Depressing movie that couldn't touch the book. Only Robert Downey Jr. emerged from that wreckage with his plumage unbothered.

movie budget was too huge and produced to appeal to mtv demograph and made by much older, wealthier and experienced adults — and directed by the british 'another country' filmmaker.

book was written by one author who was too young to make a movie.

the movie "kids" is a little closer to the urban tone of "less than" ... but "kids" was directed by an old-fart, too.

Was Andrew McCarthy ever that popular? I think (could be wrong) Weekend At Bernies was a video & HBO hit and what else? Pretty In Pink was Molly & Duckie…. Also the trio of Coke & Club books flopped (Less, Slaves To NY & Bright Lights) when filmed - or I think they did.

......

I found the Disneyfication of the movie really ruined it for me. In the book, the narrator had just tricked with a guy, and as he was getting dressed afterward, couldn't figure out whose underwear was whose. That was such a "true" moment for me in my young slutty, just-coming-out twenties, and I loved it. And as noted above, the movie went from that to the same character puking because his friend turned tricks.

[quote]Only thing I would've done different is trade out The Bangles Hazy Shade of Winter for Sheila E's A Love Bizarre.

Are you high?

I saw Less Than Zero when it came out in 1987 but knew nothing about it beforehand.

Going in, I assumed it was a John Hughes type of comedy given that the cast had largely come into prominence appearing in Hughes comedies or other teen/young adult comedies of the early 80s.

A few minutes in, I realized this was not going to be a comedy, but I figured it would be a coming-of-age drama along the lines of St. Elmo's Fire.

By the end of the movie, it was none of the above. It was well done, but I couldn't classify it. It lacked a great plot and lacked characters I could identify with. It just sort of was a collection of scenes about an decadent and excessive lifestyle of spoiled, wealthy teens who I couldn't relate too.

But at the same time, it also managed to condemn homosexuality. And managed to get the obligatory ending of drug use is bad, complete with one character turning her back on drugs by just saying No. Nancy Reagan was no doubt proud.

[quote]It lacked a great plot and lacked characters I could identify with. It just sort of was a collection of scenes about an decadent and excessive lifestyle of spoiled, wealthy teens

As R25 pointed out, this is the book in a nutshell. It just doesn't translate to film well.

OP, because it just isn’t that good of a movie.

The book is a series of vignettes. Some of the same characters pop up in the various vignettes. But there's no real plot to the book.

That was the first challenge of making a movie of the book They had to create a plot to carry the story out of these vignettes from the book.

film adaptations of

Slaves of New York, Bright Lights, Big City' and Less Than Zero

Good title for a novel, terrible title for a movie.

Robert played himself in that movie. Big Sketch.

There are some things you can get away with in print that you cannot do in pictures, like the corncob scene in William Faulkner's "Sanctuary." And that's fine. Some of Bret Easton Ellis' more daring inventions are best left on the page.

I would also add that it wasn't just wealthy kids full of ennui that were involved in sex n' drugs n' rock n' roll in the 1980s. Similar things were going on in all socioecomomic groups all over the Western world, and for some of us it was happy, joyous and liberating. Ellis' vision was a lurid and slanderous caricature of young people for wealthy conservatives like Wlliam F. Buckley to tut tut over.