Oh boy, here we go again.
After decades of being treated like radioactive IP in Hollywood, “The Bonfire of the Vanities” is crawling its way back—this time as a prestige TV series. According to Variety, David E. Kelley is developing an adaptation for Apple TV+, where he’ll write and executive produce. Most intriguing: Matt Reeves is attached to direct the show.
On paper, this actually makes a lot of sense. If there was ever a story that screamed “limited series,” it’s Wolfe’s sprawling, acidic dissection of 1980s New York—Wall Street, greed, media hysteria, racial tension, all revolving around bond trader Sherman McCoy. The book, first serialized in Rolling Stone in 1984 before its 1987 publication, is dense, character-driven, and unapologetically mean.
Now, of course, there’s a cautionary tale here. Brian De Palma’s 1990 adaptation remains one of the great disasters in studio filmmaking—a glossy, wildly misjudged take that stripped Wolfe’s satire down to something oddly toothless. It was miscast. Tom Hanks as McCoy? Not right. Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith didn’t know what movie they were in. Worse, studio interference occurred.
This is why nobody’s really touched this thing in 35 years.
Now, a limited series format could give this room to breathe—to actually explore the worlds of finance, politics, media, and the justice system without flattening everything into a two-hour compromise.
The wildcard here is Reeves, a strong filmmaker. Even if you don’t necessarily adhere to his brand of IP filmmaking, he knows how to frame a shot, control tone, and create atmosphere, and his knack for darker storytelling suggests he might, maybe, actually lean into the cynicism this story needs.
No production date is set just yet. Reeves is starting production on “The Batman: Part II” on May 29 in London, and once the dust settles on that, he’ll be free to tackle Wolfe for the small screen.