‘Coke and booze didn’t help my creativity’: Joe Eszterhas on his wild times – and his supernatural, anti-woke Basic Instinct reboot

He was the screenwriting colossus behind Flashdance, Jagged Edge, Showgirls and more. Now clean, ‘Hollywood’s Shakespeare’ talks about today’s scared studios, his refugee trauma – and taking acid with Hunter S Thompson Joe Eszterhas was the swaggering pitchman of 80s and 90s Hollywood; the king of the high-concept, precision-tooled blockbuster. He wrote Jagged Edge, co-scripted Flashdance, and pocketed a then record $3m for his Basic Instinct screenplay. Writers typically skulk near the botto...

By Xan Brooks