Can Ryan Murphy Save Bret Easton Ellis’ ‘The Shards’ From HBO Development Hell?

Will Ryan Murphy Rescue Bret Easton Ellis From HBO Hell? 

Now that Ryan Murphy is done dramatizing Truman Capote’s checkered history, the always edgy producer appears to be moving on to another literary bad boy. Rambling Reporter has learned that Murphy, 59, is in discussions to produce a series-length adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ The Shards, the 2023 semi-autobiographical novel full of drugs, angst and murder, loosely based on the author’s teen years at The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks. The property, a prequel of sorts to Less Than Zero, Ellis’ 1985 best-seller about moody 20-somethings in L.A. during the early Reagan era, had been chugging toward production at HBO since January 2024. Norwegian auteur Kristoffer Borgli had reportedly been signed to direct, and Jacob Elordi, the Australian actor from Saltburn, was said to be circling to star. But then, in September, it all blew up over creative differences. “I really felt like eight months of the year had been wasted,” Ellis, 60, told a movie blog in January, complaining about how “frustrating” the development process had been at Warner Bros. and vowing to wash his hands of any future adaptation of the book. “I said, ‘Never again; I’m never going to do this again.’ ” But with Murphy now riding high, Ellis may want to reconsider that promise. Murphy’s FX series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans has been an awards contender all year (five Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe nom), as has his latest season of Netflix’s true-crime series Monster, which, come to think of it, also focuses on Less Than Zero-like disaffected youth growing up in L.A. in the ’80s (you know, the Menendez brothers). One insider says the deal is all but closed, while another knowledgable source tells THR, “There have been discussions but nothing firm.” Fingers crossed.

The Trump Bump for Book Sales: It’s Positively Orwellian

In a month that saw apocalyptic fires in Los Angeles and unconstitutional authoritarian chaos in Washington, Americans have been relaxing with … dystopian fiction about apocalyptic fires and authoritarian governments. Bookscan, which covers about 85 percent of all book purchases in the U.S., reported that sales of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel about book burning, rose 150 percent to land as the No. 8 best-selling book in the country, while 1984, the classic George Orwell story about authoritarian regimes manipulating the truth, landed at No. 10 after sales jumped 192 percent. Just missing the top 10 cut were Octavia Butler’s novel of apocalyptic climate change, The Parable of the Sower; Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale; and Orwell’s Animal Farm. Alex Woloch, an Orwell scholar at Stanford, says a similar jump happened after Donald Trump’s first inauguration, when Kellyanne Conway’s declaration that Trump’s misrepresentations were just “alternative facts” sent 1984 to No. 1 on Bookscan. He believes people keep returning to these stories because they provide a “reassuring moral clarity” about what they are witnessing. “To read 1984, or The Handmaid’s Tale, is to feel a clear, unified and authoritative perspective on the events described, which is in stark contrast to the disorientation of politics, and the coverage of politics, at the moment,” he says. Still, such bumps are often ephemeral. By the following week, the best-seller list was back to four books by Rebecca Yarros, two from Freida McFadden, a couple of self-help tomes and the latest in the canine cop series Dog Man. — Andy Lewis

Guy Pearce’s Pro-Palestinian Pin Problem Isn’t Going Away 

This year’s Oscars will have at least one guaranteed moment of fingernail-biting suspense: when Guy Pearce shows up on the red carpet. Will the 57-year-old Australian actor be wearing his controversial pro-Palestinian lapel jewelry, or won’t he? His tiny brooches have been making big waves all awards season, with Pearce donning the divisive trinkets as he’s been promoting The Brutalist, the post-Holocaust drama in which he has an Oscar-nominated supporting role as an antisemitic American industrialist. The pin first popped up on Pearce’s chest at the Cannes Film Festival in May, setting off a mini scandal when Vanity Fair France airbrushed it out of pictures of the actor, presumably fearing the magazine’s readers would find it offensive. Pearce was so infuriated by the edit — “A disgrace,” he called it — he dashed off an angry email to CNN. “As the Palestinian people are already suffering great trauma and loss due to the vengeful regime of Netanyahu,” he wrote, “it is most unfortunate that a reputable publication like VF attempts to eliminate support that I or anyone chooses to offer.” Months later, at the Golden Globes, Pearce was still pinning himself to the cause, wearing an “Artist4Ceasefire” bauble on his lapel, which sparked predictable online outrage (“He’s … playing an antisemite, which makes you wonder if he thinks he’s actually the hero of the film,” posted one wag). Even after the Gaza ceasefire began in January, Pearce continued to decorate his jackets with “Free Palestine” buttons, including at The Brutalist’s London premiere (where he told Sky News that “thankfully all those people in Gaza can go back to their homes and live freely like they did on October the 6th”) and at the AACTA Awards in Australia (which Pearce attended on Feb. 7 instead of the Critics Choice Awards in Hollywood). Pearce’s reps did not respond to requests for comment, but sources tell Rambling Reporter that the actor does indeed intend to pin “something” on his jacket at the Oscars. — Merle Ginsberg

This story appeared in the Feb. 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.