We’ve known for a while that Oliver Stone was doing a sequel to Wall Street (1987), but now Nikki Finke has details.

I’m told that screenwriter Allan Loeb (21, Things We Lost In The Fire) will hand in his second draft to Fox later this week. I heard Loeb’s first draft was “so great” that Stone didn’t feel the need to touch it.

That’s interesting, considering 21 was a cliché-ridden hunk of sh*t.

I’m told Wall Street 2‘s story spans from June 2008 through the federal bailout. “We wanted to see some perspective in the same way that the original dealt with insider trading,” a source explains to me. Michael Douglas reprises his Best Actor Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko. […] As the movie begins, it’s 21 years later and Mr. Greed Is Good has finished serving his prison sentence. He finds himself on the fringe of the financial community. (“Kinda like Jim Cramer or Mike Milken after their disgrace,” an insider tells me.) Gekko is cautioning Wall Street that the “end is coming” — but nobody is listening. So Gordon is obsessed with trying to repair his ruptured relationship with his daughter.

So, kinda like The Wrestler with hair gel instead of steroids.

Enter Shia LaBeouf [DON'T MIND IF I DO. -Ed.], who was reported in negotiations and I can now state is set to co-star. Shia is a young Wall Street trader who’s engaged to be married to Gekko’s estranged daughter. Shia wants to be a major player, but his mentor unexpectedly kills himself, and Shia thinks a stock-shorting worldwide hedge fund manager is responsible. Shia seeks revenge on this villain, to be played by No Country For Old Men Supporting Actor-winner Javier Bardem. So Shia goes to Gordon saying, “I need your help”, and makes a Faustian deal with Gekko who in return wants Shia’s help getting back with the daughter. From then on, it’s “antagonism” for everyone, my insider says.

Weird, Antagonism for Everyone is the title of my autobiography.  I also have it tattooed on my cock.  (*adjusts reading glasses*)

^{Gordon GECKO?  Anyone?  Shut up.}

Michael Douglas is coming back to Wall Street to reprise the role of Gordon Gekko, the character who inspired a generation of douchebags.  Oliver Stone will direct the Fox (uh oh) production, with Shia LaBeouf still in negotiations.

Just as “Wall Street” epitomized the high-flying 1980s with Gekko’s motto “greed is good,” the sequel [still called Wall Street 2, which I doubt will stick] is expected to mirror the latest news from the credit crisis and the recession. Production on the sequel is expected to begin this summer, and the screenplay comes from Allan Loeb, who helped pen the 2008 gambling movie “21″ starring Kevin Spacey. [Yahoo, Variety]

Ooh, ripped from the headlines – it’ll be like Law and Order on the big screen.  And with Oliver Stone at the helm, what could go wrong?  He has a reputation for even-handedness, you see.

It was just yesterday that the official line from Hollywood was that people were so fed up with bad financial news that they were looking for any escape from reality, even it meant seeing a movie about rapping chihuahuas alone.  Yet today, word is that Fox is pushing forward with a sequel to Wall St. called Money Never Sleeps [probably from people always snorting coke through it! Hiyo!].

The logline is being kept under wraps, though it will feature the character of Gordon Gekko, the corporate raider character immortalized by Michael Douglas in the 1987 Oliver Stone film. Douglas, who won an Oscar for the role, is interested in reprising the character but will make his decision of whether to return based on the script. [THR]

Oh boy, a movie about insufferable douchebags.  We don’t get nearly enough of that from Entourage, Paris Hilton’s BFF, The Hills, The Real World, Tila Tequila, Perez Hilton… Look, unless someone’s killing hookers and feeding stray cats to the ATM, no one gives a shit about people in finance.  Also, no one in real life is named “Gekko”.  Is no one else bothered by that?  How do you take a movie seriously when one of the characters is named Mike Giraffe or Bill Zebra?

A good indication of how f-ed we are: Michael Douglas, who once won an Oscar for playing a Wall Street guy, was at the U.N. yesterday to promote a nuclear test ban treaty, but reporters kept asking for his take on the current financial crisis.  Which is kind of like asking Christian Bale how Batman could’ve let 9/11 happen.

After world leaders here condemned the “boundless greed” of world markets, Douglas was asked to compare nuclear Armageddon with the “financial Armageddon on Wall Street.”  But the likening to Gordon Gekko did not end there, with a reporter asking: “Are you saying Gordon that greed is not good?”

Great question.  Please explain my metaphor, Michael, and when you answer, be sure to stay in character.

“I’m not saying that,” Douglas replied. “And my name is not Gordon. He’s a character I played 20 years ago.” [Yahoo]

Whoa, who let Debbie Downer in?  It’s actually refreshing to hear someone state the obvious.  But it raises an important point about actors vis a vis politics:  See, Mike, though we recognize you, we don’t actually know who you are.  Seeing you at political press conferences is like watching our trained monkey deliver an important message about cholesterol.  All of a sudden it wants to be taken seriously and the only thing anyone can think to ask is where its little cymbals went.

^{Fur is murder.  And yet, fab-u-looouusss…}

Director Steven Soderbergh is developing a biopic about masculine pianist and pianist lover Liberace, and word is he wants Michael Douglas, with whom he last worked in Traffic, to play the lead.

The story would focus on the court case brought against Liberace in 1982 by Scott Thorsen, who claimed $113m in palimony saying that he had been the pianist’s companion for five years. Even though Liberace always denied being gay, he settled out of court for $95,000 in 1986, before his death in 1987 from AIDS at the age of 67. [Empire]

Hahahaha, he said “pianist’s companion”, hahahahaha!  Oh my gosh, I can’t catch my breath…