Sharon Stone, star of the originalBasic Instinct, gave a brutally honest answer when asked for her thoughts about plans to mount some sort of remake or reboot of the hit film. In July 2025, Amazon MGM’s United Artists banner announced its plans to “reboot"Basic Instinct, bringing back the film’s original screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas, to pen the script.Basic Instinctwas released in 1992 and, in part because it attracted a great deal of controversy upon its release, it became a cultural sensation, ranking as the fourth highest-grossing film of the year with $352.9 million worldwide. Many imitators followed, but it was unquestionably the quintessential erotic thriller of the decade.
Sharon Stone, who played the film’s central antagonist, Catherine Tramell, gave her thoughts on the upcoming release while speaking withToday’s Craig Melvin. Stone said, viaVariety, that she’s skeptical about the idea of anyone revisitingBasic Instinct, given that the direct sequel,Basic Instinct 2, bombed at the box office. With a bit of a laugh at the idea and her own willingness to be blunt, she said:
“If it goes the way the one I was in went, then I would just say I do not know why you would do it. Go ahead. Good fucking luck! [laughs]. I’m at that stage in my life where I already retired once. And I already died a couple times. I’m like, ‘What are you going to do? Kill me again? Go ahead.'”
Why Remake ‘Basic Instinct’?
Stone’s comments aboutBasic Instinct 2are warranted. The sequel was in development hell for years, and when it was finally released in theaters 14 years later in 2006, it was a critical and box office disaster.Basic Instinct 2earned a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes and won four Razzies, including Worst Picture and Worst Actress. After opening at Number 10 at the domestic box office with only $3.2 million and dropping 68.2% in its second weekend, Sony Pictures pulled the film from theaters after 17 days of release with a domestic total of $5.9 million and a worldwide total of $38.6 million. With a $70 million budget, it is ranks among the biggest bombs of all time.
DespiteBasic Instinct 2serving as evidence that theBasic Instinctbrand name doesn’t hold much sway with audiences,particularly without director Paul Verhoeven, Amazon MGM is still moving forward. Instead of taking a chance on an original erotic thriller, they’re revisiting a film that was a hit in the 1990s but already proved it didn’t have the general audience appeal in the 2000s. It appears that United Artists is revivingBasic Instinctsolely because it’s a brand name, despite the fact that most of the key players from the original are not involved, including Sharon Stone.
The project has also already come under fire for what has beendescribed as being “anti-woke.“Nobody has quite been able to clarify what those comments mean; despite the “go woke, go broke” refrain of right-wing pundits, movies that try to frame themselves as being “anti-woke” often have a ceiling that shows they can only be so successful… if they’re successful at all. History has shown that trying to recaptureBasic Instinctis far easier said than done, but the studio’s still trying again.
Basic Instinct
