This queer author’s coming-of-age thriller is coming to HBO with an assist from Luca Guadagnino

It was over 35 years ago when queer author Bret Easton Ellis first broke into the literary world with his generation-defining novel, Less Than Zero—when he was barely in his 20s—which quickly became a buzzy movie starring Robert Downey, Jr.

Since then, he’s remained in the conversation with more divisive novels and their splashy adaptations (American Psycho, The Rules Of Attraction), a few less successful attempts at film (The Canyons with Lindsay Lohan), and a public perception as a “provocateur,” someone who rarely pulls punches.

Surprisingly, he hadn’t written a novel in over 13 years, finally returning to the page earlier this year with loosely autobiographical coming-of-age thriller, The Shards.

The story finds a successful author named Bret recalling his senior year of high school in 1981 Los Angeles. Through his narration, we meet his cool kid clique of friends—most of them the wealthy children of entertainment industry power players—as well as an enigmatic new student named Robert Mallory.

We also learn about a serial killer stalking the Hollywood Hills, dubbed the “Trawler” by the press, who taunts his victims with phone calls and missing items before mutilating their bodies. Bret becomes suspicious that Robert is the culprit, and grows increasingly paranoid as the newcomer ingratiates himself to his friend group.

Meanwhile, Bret (the character) is exploring his sexuality. Though he has a girlfriend, he’s also enjoying secret, casual hookups with a few of his male classmates—a hobby that winds up twisting him further into the central mystery.

Like much of Ellis’ work, The Shards concerns itself with disaffected beautiful young people who fill their time with sex and drugs, taking the sheen off their glamorous lives by exploring a dark underbelly of abuse and violence.

If that all sounds a bit like “Euphoria + a serial killer,” well, it’s worth noting that the hit HBO show from Sam Levinson owes a great debt to Ellis’ work, specifically in its sensationalized portrayal of nihilistic youth.

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Fittingly, it was announced earlier this year that HBO was developing a television adaptation of The Shards, with Ellis himself tapped to write all episodes and Nick Hall (The White Lotus, Looking) and Brian Young (Vox Lux) producing.

Considering Hollywood’s ongoing Writer’s Guild strike, we don’t anticipate hearing any major news about series production or casting any time soon, but the author did offer a surprising update in a recent interview with Spanish outlet El Independiente: Celebrated filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is on board to direct (at least some of the episodes of) the series.

Guadagnino is best known as the director of gay romance Call Me By Your Name, which racked up a handful of Oscar nominations and introduced the filmmaker to a wider audience. Since then, he’s helmed a remake of Suspiria, the “cannibal love story” Bones And All, has the sexy tennis love triangle Challengers on the way this fall, and is already in production on the William S. Burroughs adaptation Queer with Daniel Craig. Busy, busy!

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In 2020, Guadagnino also directed the queer coming-of-age drama We Are Who We Are for HBO, so having him tackle Ellis’ dark and sexy story for the premium network feels like a perfect match.

It’s an exciting update that has us even more intrigued by The Shards—whenever it ends up hitting our TV screens. Ellis’ voice really spoke to a generation when he broke through in the late ’80s and early ’90s, so we’ll be eager to see how he respond to the current moment.

In the meantime, we’re going to revisit the underrated The Rules Of Attraction—truly, that movie walked so Euphoria could run!

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