Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo Courtesy of 20th Century Studios When did the erotic thriller disappear from Hollywood? Ask anyone in the industry and they’ll tell you that sex-pulsed neo-noir ceased as a dependable popcorn genre back in 2002, not long after the theatrical release of Adrian Lyne’s Unfaithful. By then, films of its ilk had been limping along for years — see: the twin debacles of Showgirls and Jade, critically lambasted potboilers that bombed at the box office in 1995.
Case in point: Deep Water, the Ben Affleck–Ana de Armas drama that also happens to mark Lyne’s first time back in the director’s chair since Unfaithful. Delayed twice in 2020 and 2021, the $48.9 million adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s twisty novel of the same name was finally yanked from any theatrical scheduling by Disney in December and quietly dumped onto Hulu last month.
In 2019, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke publicly committed to a slate of what she termed “sexy date night” streaming movies, citing a conversation with Nicole Kidman as the impetus. “She was like, where are the movies like Basic Instinct and Cruel Intentions and No Way Out, those movies you want to watch at home?” Salke recalled.
The 1987 film “was told primarily with the male gaze,” Clemens explains, but the TV series will provide “a 360-degree view, dimensionalizing the characters, really getting underneath their skin and examining the psychology.
Yet another series reboot, of the silken 1980 neo-noir thriller American Gigolo , is currently under way at Showtime.