Rules of Attraction Character Comes To Life

Its apparently Bret Easton Ellis derivative work week here at Not An Exit. The Hampton Dunce of Camden College Fame is a work in progress purportedly by the guy that was the basis for a character in Rules of Attraction.

Many of the blog entries are audio entries with just a short bit of text. You have to click the entry title to be taken to the page with the mp3 of the audio. The few I listened to were extremely low volume, so be prepared to crank it up. Here's a couple of choice entries to get you started.

My Relationship With Bret Easton Ellis

Photo of Ellis at Camden College

Stalking Bret Easton Ellis

I just ran across Stalking Bret Easton Ellis while on Facebook. I haven't had a chance to read up on it yet. Anybody have info on this? Below is the trailer for the book.

Ellis' Horror Script In Production

An untitled horror screenplay written by Bret is headed into production by Roseblood Movie Company. [thanks Alphonse]

Ellis' story line involves an awkward social outcast who takes hostage a group of peers who humiliated him, with grim results. Brad Furman ("The Take") is set to direct the film.

Bret's On Twitter

You can now follow Bret on Twitter. NY Mag says its real. Not much going on there yet.

Worst Film Of The Year?

Uh oh - these aren't the headlines any of us wanted to see. Is The Informers the Worst Film of the Year?

And more reaction from Bret to how the film turned out.

The Informers Opens With $314k

Based on all the poor reviews of The Informers film from the time it hit Sundance, it wasn't much of a surprise that it opened to only $315,000 its opening weekend.

Bret Talks Glitterati, Informers, More

Another interview with Bret, this time at the AV Club. They hit on a bunch of topics, including the American Psycho musical, Glitterati and where he gets his material.

Well, they are autobiographical in the sense that they reflect who I was at a particular moment in my life. There was talk of a memoir, and I realized why I couldn't write a memoir, because the books are the memoir - they completely sum up how I was feeling, what I was thinking about, what my obsessions were, what I was fantasizing about, who I was, in a fictional context over the last 25 years or so. I don't really look at writing as like, "Oh yeah, I went out with Donna and Frank the other night, and she said something really interesting, and God, the way he lit his cigarette was kind of a cool thing. I'm gonna jot that down and put that in the book I'm working on." It just doesn't work that way. I don't know how it works. I don't know why I write what I write. I mean, it's impossible to talk about. I don't know.

AVC: A lot of Rules Of Attraction fans would ask you if Glitterati will ever see the light of day.

BEE: For many legal reasons, it will never see the light of day. You can't really show Glitterati in public, it's not possible. There are a lot of people who would be very upset. I don't even know if they got permission from a lot of the people in it, which might be a big problem, why it's only shown privately.

Roger's obsessed with containment of this. I think it would ruin marriages. [Laughs] I think what they shot is... I think it'll be a long time before they can show this movie. I think Kip Pardue would be okay with it, maybe. But it's basically about 90 minutes of him in character actually seducing women throughout Europe. Much of this was shot late at night, and people didn't care. I just don't know what you could do with it. You can't really show this movie in public.

Thanks to Greg for the heads up on the interview.

Benecio Del Toro As Bret Easton Ellis!?

So, there still isn't a director attached to the film version of Lunar Park, but Bret says that Benecio Del Toro has the inside track on the lead role.

According to Easton Ellis, it was their physical differences that attracted the "Traffic" star to the role. "I think he's interested just because he's rarely offered Anglo parts. I think that's one of the reasons it was very exciting [to him]," explained the writer.

"I don't even think he read the book; I just think he read the script and said 'Oh, this is an Anglo writer and you're not casting a white dude? You've come to me?' And I think that rarely happens for him. I think he's offered a lot of Spanish characters and ethnic types, and I think it's very rare for him to get offered Anglo parts."

I've always thought that if they did it soon, and he lost some weight, Jon Favreau would be a good pick.

Time Out New York

Time Out New York has a short interview with Bret about The Informers film and his upcoming novel, Imperial Bedrooms. They asked a good question about how difficult it was for Bret to put himself back into the proper frame of mind to write about the Less Than Zero characters again.

It was difficult to get back into this guy's voice, even though he's my age. He's in his forties, and it has been 20-some years since the events of that book took place. And now we meet this narrator again at another point in his life. Of course, he's older and wiser and maybe a little bit creepier than he was in the original. It's still essentially the same guy. I had to go back and do a variation on that voice and style of writing. It was a strange position to be in. Can't say it was totally pleasurable, but it was interesting to see how this works.

Thanks to Jack for the heads up on this interview.

Bret Talks About The Informers Film

Bret talked to MTV about his thoughts on how The Informers film turned out.

"It's a painful process. I've seen about a hundred different versions of 'The Informers,' once the film was assembled," he remembers. "But I like the movie, I'll stand by it."

"The script that I wrote is not really on the screen," he explains. "What was weird about watching this movie was that it was based on a book of mine; it's the first one that I adapted myself. Yet, it's very different from what I imagined it would be."

Bret In Men's Vogue International

The newest issue of Men's Vogue International has an interview with BEE. The only thing I can find online is a short excerpt in French. The English language cover can be seen here. He apparently talks a bit about Imperial Bedrooms.

Thanks to Matt for the link. Babelfish translation of the French excerpt after the jump.

Imperial Bedrooms Complete!

Whole bunch of news nuggets today.

Bret's new novel, Imperial Bedrooms is complete and will hit shelves in May 2010. He's also working on trying to re-unite the original case of Less Than Zero for a potential film version of Imperial Bedrooms.

Thanks to Joe McGinnis Jr. for the heads up.

After the jump are some quotes from Bret about Imperial Bedrooms.

New Ellis Screenplay Based on Duncan/Blake Suicides

A new screenplay is coming from Bret based on...

Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, the inseparable East Village artists who killed themselves last year believing they were being persecuted.

I'm not sure what this means for the timing of Imperial Bedrooms, but this sounds like it could make for an interesting film.

"It's a kind of modern Romeo and Juliet story, set in the East Village, with the addition of anti-Bush conspiracy theories and Scientologists," says Sales. "They continue to be the subject of fascination precisely because no one knows exactly why they did it. We only know that they were deeply in love, which makes their suicides all the more mysterious."

Bret's Fantastic Man Interview

London Preppy has some details on the Fantastic Man interview with Ellis that I posted the cover image to a couple weeks ago.

The proximity between Mr Ellis and his work is an enduring fascination for his fans. You can call Bret Easton Ellis fans "fans" in a way that you cannot with other authors but that you might with a rock star or film director. Bret himself tells of a fan that runs a blog under the name LONDON PREPPY who has "BRET EASTON ELLIS" tattooed inside his biceps.

In the right sidebar of the London Preppy site is a photo widgit where you can see the tattoo mentioned here.

The Informers Opens April 24th

Some rumors have been on the net that The Informers was going straight to DVD - Senator says its not true. The film is scheduled to hit theaters on April 24th.

Why Brandon Routh Was Cut From The Informers

I can't find the original source for this, but here is some more details about the decision to remove the vampires from The Informers film.

According to the sources, Ellis and Jarecki, who wrote the screenplay, are not quite happy with the finished product. They told pals that the film they had started to make is quite different from the finished product.

Bret Is A 'Fantastic Man'

Bret made the cover of Fantastic Man Magazine (a Dutch men's lifestyle mag).

Thanks to Samuel for the heads up.

Happy Birthday Bret!

Bret turned 45 years old on Saturday.

New Trailer For The Informers

A new all-audiences trailer is up at theinformers.com. I like this trailer a hundred times better than the previous versions.

Gregor Jordan Talks About The Informers

Moviehole has an interview with Gregor Jordan about The Informers. He talks a bit about the reviews so far and says everyone was aware this would be a 'polarizing' film in terms of reviews.

We also might get to see all the cut vampire scenes in the DVD.

Possibly. I mean, it was very interesting trying to cut this movie, because the script was quite unwieldy. Well, you know, it was long and unwieldy. Because, you know, Bret put a lot in there. And what we decided to do was just shoot it all. Knowing that we were going to find the film in the cutting room, in a sense. So there was actually a lot of really fantastic scenes that aren't in the movie, that really deserve to get seen, I think. Because there's such - you know, as just sort of isolated scenes, I think they're really interesting moments. So whether or not that comes out on the DVD, or whether - you know, maybe they'll put it on the Internet, or something like that - you know, yes. know.