“Let’s talk about the future now we’ve put the past away,” Elvis Costello sang in Less Than Zero. The song went on to infamy during a Saturday Night Live appearance, and inspired Bret Easton Ellis to explore nihilism. Ellis’ past will be TV’s future as his book Less Than Zero is being developed into a series by Hulu, according to Variety.
“Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980’s, Less Than Zero has become a timeless classic,” reads the official statement. “This coolly mesmerising novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age. They live in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money in a place devoid of feeling or hope.”
Less Than Zero will be written and executive produced by Craig Wright, who created and executive produces OWN’s Greenleaf, co-developed FX’s series adaptation of Gideon Raff novel Tyrant, and wrote for Lost and Six Feet Under.
“Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine,” reads the official synopsis. “He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay’s holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.
Ellis’s 1985 novel was made into a 1987 film which starred Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr., James Spader and Jami Gertz. Ellis co-wrote the screenplay with Harley Peyton. Ellis’ books American Psycho and The Rules Of Attraction have also made it to screens.
There will be more news as the story develops.