USA Today have unveiled a new feature on Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” with a whole host of new photos and interviews.
The film centers on young Jacob Moore (Shia Labeouf) who acquires the assistance of former Wall Street mogul Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) — who happens to be the estranged father of his girlfriend Winnie (Carey Mulligan) — in trying to bring down hedge fund manager Bretton Woods (Josh Brolin) who he blames for the suspicious death of of his mentor (Frank Langella). Susan Sarandon co-stars as Moore’s mother while Charlie Sheen returns in a small cameo as Bud Fox.
Helmer Stone reveals he had no intentions to make a sequel before the recession hit and star Douglas and producer Edward R. Pressman brought a draft of the script to Stone’s attention last March.
“It hooked me. I had passed on the original script by another writer about a year before, but that was before the crash happened. A lot has gone on since… We shot 56 or 57 days at 40-plus locations. It’s the most locations ever done in New York. We shot in every borough of the city except for Staten Island, as well as on Long Island and in New Jersey. We used one little stage on Wall Street. And we shot in London.”
“In my father’s world, making a million was a ton,” Stone, the son of a stockbroker, explains. “I come back to Wall Street now, and it’s not a million dollars. It’s a billion dollars. And a billion is nothing. They don’t even consider that the beginning of a hedge fund. That is what is amazing about the ’90s and 2000s — how rich people got. But it is a weird kind of rich. Maybe a superficial rich.”
“We have three generations, and they are all vying for power,” Stone says referring to Labeouf as the 20-ish hedge-fund trader, Brolin as the new-style Gekko, a cold-blooded fortysomething investment banker” and Douglas returning as a new Gekko, who has written a book amptly titled “Is Greed Good?” forecasting the coming collapse of the market.
“It is a different role for Michael. He can’t go back to the wisecracking Gekko. This is a man who has suffered greatly and lost everything.”
This time around though, Labeouf will headline the film in a performance already earning praise from Stone who likes his “energy and transparency” noting that “his eyes let you in.”
“It is a live-by-the-seat-of-your-pants mentality,” Labeouf notes of his role. “I talked to a lot of Goldman Sachs people, and one of the requirements of getting a job takes place in the first five minutes of an interview. They take you out to eat. The minute the menu hits the table, if you can’t order within 30 seconds, you don’t have the job.”
The film is also British actress Carey Mulligan’s first big Hollywood role where she will play the estranged daughter of Gordon Gekko, whom she blames for her brother’s death from a drug overdose and her mother’s mental breakdown.
“Carey is a strong young actress who brings class and quality to the film. I cast her blind without an audition. She was a perfect match for Shia, and brought his game up.”
“Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” hits theaters April 23rd.