Sharon Stone reacts to planned Basic Instinct reboot: ‘Good f***ing luck’

Film’s original scriptwriter is reportedly part of team behind new ‘anti-woke’ reboot

Sharon Stone isn’t too optimistic about Amazon MGM’s planned Basic Instinct reboot, saying she doesn’t “know why you'd do it”.

The 1992 erotic thriller starred Michael Douglas as a detective who becomes involved with the prime suspect of his murder investigation, played by Sharon Stone. The film went on to become a box office hit, earning over $350m worldwide.

The original film’s screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas, is reportedly writing the screenplay for a new “anti-woke” reboot.

Stone, whose performance as femme fatale Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct is widely considered her breakout role, doesn’t think too highly of the planned reboot.

“If it goes the way the one that I was in went, I would just say, I don't know why you'd do it,” Stone told Today on Monday, referring to the 2006 sequel which was received poorly both at the box office and by critics.

Made on a budget of $70m, Basic Instinct 2 ended up making only $38.6m worldwide.

“I mean, go ahead, but good f***ing luck,” she added.

“I’m at that stage in my life where I already retired once,” she continued. “And I already died a couple times. I’m like, ‘What are you going to do? Kill me again? Go ahead.’”

Sharon Stone isn’t too optimistic about Amazon MGM’s planned Basic Instinct reboot (Studio Canal)

In 2001, the then-43-year-old Casino star was rushed to the hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage that lasted for nine days and took her seven years to fully recover.

“I had a death experience and then they brought me back. I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face. It wasn’t positioned in my head where it was before,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

“And while that was happening, everything changed,” she explained. “My sense of smell, my sight, my touch. I couldn’t read for a couple of years. Things were stretched and I was seeing color patterns. A lot of people thought I was going to die.”

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Before the stroke, Stone was one of the biggest actors of the Eighties and Nineties, with leading roles in blockbusters such as Total Recall, The Quick and the Dead, and Casino.

In 2015, Stone talked about the impact the stroke had on her career, saying: “I lost my place in the business. I was like the hottest movie star, you know? It was like Miss Princess Diana and I were so famous – and she died and I had a stroke. And we were forgotten.

“You find yourself at the back of the line in your business, as I did. You have to figure yourself out all over again.”

Stone’s latest role is in action film Nobody 2, where she plays crime boss Lendina. The film follows former assassin-turned-suburban dad Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) pulled back into his violent past after thwarting a home invasion.

The film was released in theatres in 15 August 2025.