Exit Luca Guadagnino, the adaptation of The Shards, the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, changes director

Kristoffer Borgli (Dream Scenario) takes over the reins of the HBO series.

It is controversial, its characters are cold, narcissistic, psychopathic and evolve in the American neoliberal consumer society exploding in the 80s. After the violent American Psycho And The Laws of Attraction (both adapted into films), it is on the small screen that Breat Easton Ellis come back. Thirteen years after his last novel, the American novelist was back in bookstores with an autofiction faithful to his transgressive style. The Shrads, translated into French as Splinterswas released last year and features the author himself in his final year at the private Buckley High School in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, in a microcosm of the ultra-rich where there is no limit.

At 17, Bret experiences all the rites of passage to adulthood with his friends: alcohol, sex and drugs (missing more than rock n' roll). But the arrival of a new student, Robert Mallory, shatters everything while a serial killer nicknamed the Trawler rages in the area. Bret begins to follow Robert and his paranoid imagination makes him understand that danger is approaching his circle…

In July 2023, the project for a series adaptation for HBO lasting three seasons of ten episodes was announced with, at the helm, Lucas Guadagnino (Call me by your name, Bones and All). At the casting, rumors were circulating that Jacob Elordi (Priscilla, Saltburn) had been approached by the director of Challengers. But the situation has changed!

Luca Guadanigno to direct Bret Easton Ellis series for HBO

Yesterday, American media revealed that Luca Guadanigno was leaving the project and was replaced by Kristoffer Borgli – who made last year Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage, and Sick of Myself presented in the Un Certain Regard selection at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. On social networks, some expressed their disappointment, declaring that only the Italian filmmaker was capable of capturing the essence of the novel.

Breat Easton Ellis is handling the screenplay himself. For the moment, no casting has been made official. In the meantime, the author will direct his first horror film which he wrote himself, Relapse, with Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things).

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