10 Abandoned Scripts Better Than The Finished Movie
4. Jade Could Have Been As Big As Basic Instinct
Jade was a failed attempt to re-live the success of the Joe Eszterhas-scripted Basic Instinct. All the allure, taboo and lurid exploitation of Paul Verhoeven's erotic crime thriller would this time be in the hands of legendary director William Friedkin.
But in the early 90s, the director was in a bit of a rough patch. One would think hot property material like an Eszterhas script would be his ticket back into industry, but his most recent output had been largely maligned, the one factor each film had in common was Friedkin's tooling with the screenplay.
Films like Rampage and The Guardian were trashed in the press, and Friedkin took his red pen to Jade as well. Eszterhas, while not revealing much of what was in his draft, recalls reading negative reviews that bashed the film's screenplay, putting most of the onus on the printed word. "When I read the review," he wrote in his memoir American Animal, "I got nauseous. Because I agreed."
Friedkin admitted he made drastic changes, but he would later come out on top with films like the critically acclaimed Bug and Killer Joe. The last credited writing Eszterhas has done was An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn.