Wall Street is a 1987 American crime drama film directed and co-written by Oliver Stone, which stars Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Daryl Hannah, and Martin Sheen. The film tells the story of Bud Fox (C. Sheen), a young stockbroker who becomes involved with Gordon Gekko (Douglas), a wealthy, unscrupulous corporate raider.
Stone made the film as a tribute to his father, Lou Stone, a stockbroker during the Great Depression. The character of Gekko is said to be a composite of several people, including Dennis Levine, Ivan Boesky, Carl Icahn, Asher Edelman, Michael Milken and Stone himself. The character of Sir Lawrence Wildman, meanwhile, was modelled on British financier and corporate raider Sir James Goldsmith. Originally, the studio wanted Warren Beatty to play Gekko, but he was not interested; Stone, meanwhile, wanted Richard Gere, but Gere passed on the role.
Wall Street was released by 20th Century Fox on December 11, 1987. The film was well received among major film critics. Douglas won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and the film has come to be seen as the archetypal portrayal of 1980s excess, with Douglas' character declaring that "greed, for lack of a better word, is good." It has also proven influential in inspiring people to work on Wall Street, with Sheen, Douglas, and Stone commenting over the years how people still approach them and say that they became stockbrokers because of their respective characters in the film.
Stone and Douglas reunited for a sequel titled Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which was released theatrically on September 24, 2010.
Plot In 1985, Bud Fox is a junior stockbroker at Jackson Steinem & Co. in New York City. He wants to work with his hero, Gordon Gekko, a legendary Wall Street player. After calling Gekko's office 59 days in a row trying to land an appointment, Bud visits Gekko on his birthday with a box of Gekko's favorite, contraband Cuban cigars. Impressed by his persistence, Gekko grants Bud an interview. Bud pitches him stocks, but Gekko is unimpressed. Desperate, Bud provides him with some inside information about Bluestar Airlines, which he has learned in a casual conversation with his father, Carl, leader of the company's maintenance workers' union. Intrigued, Gekko tells Bud he will think about it. A dejected Bud returns to his office. However, Gekko places an order for Bluestar stock and becomes one of Bud's clients.
After making a considerable amount of money from the Bluestar tip, Gekko gives Bud some capital to manage, but the other stocks Bud selects by honest research and advice from respected senior broker Lou Mannheim lose money. Gekko offers Bud another chance and tells him to spy on British investor Sir Lawrence Wildman. They deduce that Wildman is making a bid for Anacott Steel. Gekko buys a large block of shares in Anacott, which Wildman is forced to buy back from him at a high price to complete the takeover.
Bud becomes wealthy, moves into a penthouse on Manhattan's East Side and begins dating Darien Taylor, an interior decorator who also happens to be Gekko's art consultant and ex-mistress. Bud is promoted for the large commissions he brings in and is given an office with a view. He continues to exploit inside information and use friends as straw buyers to generate additional income for himself and Gekko. Unknown to Bud, several of his trades attract the attention of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Bud pitches a new idea to Gekko: buy Bluestar Airlines and expand the company, with Bud as president, using savings achieved by union concessions and the overfunded pension. Even though Bud is unable to persuade his father to support him and Gekko, he is able to get the unions to push for the deal. Soon afterward, Bud learns that Gekko plans to dissolve the company and sell off Bluestar's assets to access cash from the company's pension plan, leaving Carl and the entire Bluestar staff unemployed. Although this would leave Bud a very rich man, he is angered by Gekko's deceit and wracked with guilt for being an accessory to Bluestar's impending destruction, especially after his father suffers a heart attack. Bud resolves to disrupt Gekko's plans and breaks up with Darien when she refuses to go against Gekko, her former lover.
Bud and the union presidents secretly meet with Wildman and arrange for him to buy the stock and a controlling interest in Bluestar, at a significant discount, on the condition that he saves the company. Bud then devises a plan to leak news of Gekko's takeover to drive up the price. This forces Gekko to buy the stock at a higher price, as he tries to secure a controlling interest. Bud then convinces the unions to pull their support, ending any prospect of Gekko completing the takeover, and causing the price to plummet. This forces Gekko to offload his stock at a considerable loss. When Gekko learns on the evening news that Wildman is buying Bluestar, he realizes Bud has engineered the entire scheme. Bud triumphantly returns to work at Jackson Steinem the following day, only to be arrested by the SEC, who had been tracking Bud's insider trading.
Later, Bud confronts Gekko in Central Park. Gekko punches Bud several times, berating him for his role with Bluestar, and accuses him of ingratitude for several of their illicit trades. Later, it is revealed that Bud was wearing a wire to record his encounter with Gekko for the authorities, who suggest he may get a lighter sentence in exchange for providing evidence against Gekko. Later, Bud's parents drive him down FDR Drive towards the New York County Courthouse, telling Bud he "did the right thing" by cooperating with the government and paying back his illicit earnings, and urging him to accept Wildman's offer of a job at Bluestar once he has completed his prison sentence. After suggesting Bud "create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others", Carl drops Bud off at the courthouse, where he ascends the steps, ready to face justice for his crimes.
Cast
Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox Daryl Hannah as Darien Taylor Martin Sheen as Carl Fox John C. McGinley as Marvin Terence Stamp as Sir Larry Wildman James Karen as Harry Lynch Hal Holbrook as Lou Mannheim Sean Young as Kate Gekko James Spader as Roger Barnes Saul Rubinek as Harold Salt John Capodice as Dominick Franklin Cover as Dan Sylvia Miles as Dolores the Realtor Millie Perkins as Mrs. Fox Josh Mostel as Ollie Paul Guilfoyle as Stone Livingstone Tamara Tunie as Carolyn Leslie Lyles as Natalie Adelle Lutz as Janet Richard Dysart as Cromwell Andrea Thompson as a hooker Michael O'Donoghue as Reporter
Production Development After the success of Platoon (1986), Oliver Stone wanted film school friend and Los Angeles screenwriter Stanley Weiser to research and write a screenplay about quiz show scandals in the 1950s. During a story conference, Stone suggested making a film about Wall Street instead. Stone pitched the premise of two investment partners getting involved in questionable financial dealings, using each other, and they are tailed by a prosecutor as in Crime and Punishment. Stone had been thinking about this kind of a film as early as 1981 and was inspired by his father, Lou Stone, a broker during the Great Depression at Hayden Stone.
Stone knew a New York businessman who was making millions and working long days putting together deals all over the world. This man started making mistakes that cost him everything. Stone remembers that the "story frames what happens in my movie, which is basically a The Pilgrim's Progress of a boy who is seduced and corrupted by the allure of easy money. And in the third act, he sets out to redeem himself". Stone asked Weiser to read Crime and Punishment, but Weiser found that its story did not mix well with their own. Stone then asked Weiser to read The Great Gatsby for material that they could use, but it was not the right fit either. Weiser had no prior knowledge of the financial world and immersed himself in researching the world of stock trading, junk bonds, and corporate takeovers. He and Stone spent three weeks visiting brokerage houses and interviewing investors.
Screenplay Weiser wrote the first draft, initially called Greed, with Stone writing another draft. Originally, Charlie Sheen's character was a young Jewish broker named Freddie Goldsmith, but Stone changed the name to Bud Fox to avoid the stereotype that Wall Street was controlled by Jews. Reportedly, Gordon Gekko is said to be a composite of several people: Wall Street broker Owen Morrisey, an old friend of Stone's who was involved in a $20 million insider trading scandal in 1985, Dennis Levine, Ivan Boesky, corporate raider Carl Icahn, investor and art collector Asher Edelman, agent Michael Ovitz and Stone himself. For example, Stone told Newsweek that the "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good" line was based on a speech by Boesky where he said, "Greed is right".
According to Edward R. Pressman, producer of the film, "Originally, there was no one individual who Gekko was modeled on", he adds, "But Gekko was partly Milken". Also, Pressman has said that the character of Sir Larry Wildman was modeled on James Goldsmith, the Anglo-French billionaire and corporate-raider.
According to Weiser, Gekko's style of speaking was inspired by Stone. "When I was writing some of the dialogue I would listen to Oliver on the phone and sometimes he talks very rapid-fire, the way Gordon Gekko does". Stone cites as influences on his approach to business, the novels of Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis and Victor Hugo, and the films of Paddy Chayefsky because they were able to make a complicated subject clear to the audience. Stone set the film in 1985 because insider trading scandals culminated in 1985 and 1986. This led to anachronisms in the script, including a reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which had not yet occurred.
Casting Stone met with Tom Cruise about playing Bud Fox, but Stone had already committed to Charlie Sheen for the role. Matthew Modine turned down the role of Bud Fox. Stone liked the "stiffness" of Sheen's acting style and used it to convey Bud's naivete. Michael Douglas had just come off heroic roles like the one in Romancing the Stone and was looking for something dark and edgy. The studio wanted Warren Beatty to play Gekko, but he was not interested. Stone initially wanted Richard Gere but Gere passed, so Stone went with Douglas despite having been advised by others in Hollywood not to cast him. Stone remembers, "I was warned by everyone in Hollywood that Michael couldn't act, that he was a producer more than an actor and would spend all his time in his trailer on the phone". Nevertheless, Stone found out that "when he's acting he gives it his all". Stone said that he saw "that villain quality" in Douglas and always thought he was a smart businessman. Douglas remembers that when he first read the screenplay, "I thought it was a great part. It was a long script, and there were some incredibly long and intense monologues to open with. I'd never seen a screenplay where there were two or three pages of single-spaced type for a monologue. I thought, whoa! I mean, it was unbelievable". For research, he read profiles of corporate raiders T. Boone Pickens and Carl Icahn.