Amber Heard & Chris Issak have joined the cast of The Informers, an adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, for director Gregor Jordan (Buffalo Soldiers, Ned Kelly). Issak & Heard join an impressive ensemble cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Brandon Routh, Winona Ryder and Mickey Rourke.
The Informers takes place over a week in 1980's Los Angeles, and centers on the antics of a variety of morally bankrupt characters, including movie executives, rock stars and a vampire.
Heard plays a promiscuous young woman caught up in the decadence of L.A in the eighties, while Issak plays a sex obsessed father on vacation with his young son in Hawaii.
2008 is shaping up to be a big year for Heard, who's also got a role in The Pineapple Express for super producer Judd Apatow and helmer David Gordon Green. She also appears in the upcoming horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane-which was picked up, and then dropped by the Weinstein Company before being acquired by Senator Entertainment, which is also the company behind The Informers.
Usually, I'd approach a Bret Easton Ellis adaptation with trepidation. His work is extremely hard to adapt- as his characters are for the most part extremely unsympathetic, and not easy for filmgoers to latch onto. His debut novel, Less Than Zero was butchered back in 1988, when it was essentially turned into a Brat Pack vehicle. It's only redeeming feature was a stellar performance by a young Robbert Downey Jr., who played a junkie- a role he knew all too well.
Mary Harron's American Psycho was more successful, although Ellis's novel still had to be toned down considerably. Roger Avary Rules of Attraction is probably the most faithful adaptation of Elli's work to date- but even that film got panned by critics and audiences alike when it came out in 2002.
This time Ellis will have a hand in adapting his own work- he co-writes the screenplay with Nick Jarecki.
