Bret Easton Ellis talks about The Golden Suicides

There is a chance this film will see the light of day really dimly. Bret Easton Ellis has been writing for sometime on The Golden Suicides. The story of an art world superstar couple who perished in a double suicide originally came up as a co authored project between Ellis and Gus Van Sant. But now the news has changed on that front. Gus Van Sant is now producing the film which Bret hopes Gus will direct someday.

It is based on the Golden Couple Therese Duncan and Jeremy Blake. It is about a creative couples humble beginnings. They began to exhibit eccentric and downright bizarre behavior, requested loyalty oaths of friends, complained Scientologist persecution and eventually killed themselves within a week of each other. Dunca took pills while Black walked into the Atlantic Ocean and never came out again.

This is what Bret had to say about the writing process and the story also.

I connected with the story a lot, so it was really exciting and emotional to write it. I didn’t find it depressing. I thought it was the most difficult thing I’ve had to write…I didn’t want to make up anything. I wanted the script to really follow what happened. There were three or four scenes where the two of them are alone and no one really knows what they said. You have to take liberties during those scenes, but more or less, everything that’s in the script can be verified by things they said or things they did out there in the public.

Ellis also describes the writing as deeply personal. Ellis had this to say

“The extreme conclusion of love and of what happens if you are in love with someone for so long and their world has become your world and suddenly they are gone? I don’t know. I kept thinking that could have been me. It could have been me.”