Losing everything and becoming public enemy number one, Sherman has to figure out how to emerge unscathed. The story of a wealthy Wall Street yuppie attacking a poor inner-city kid (though key to the plot, his mistress is who actually did it and he was merely aiding and abetting) riles up the city and the District Attorney hopes charging Sherman McCoy will be a boost to his political career.

When washed-up journalist Peter Fallow finds out about this story and runs with it. On one of their rendezvous, they find themselves in the Bronx where a nervous Maria takes control of the car and hits a young African American man putting him in a coma. In the Big Apple of the 1980’s, Sherman McCoy is a “Master of the Universe”, a successful Wall Street trader with the gold-digging Maria as his sidepiece. In the end, 1990’s the Bonfire of the Vanities became one of the biggest flops in movie history. Shortly afterward Guber abruptly left the movie, leaving DePalma alone to deal with the studio as both a director and producer. Looking for another hit after his last movie Casualties of War tanked at the box office (but did well with critics), DePalma accepted the role so many of his colleagues turned down. But producer Peter Guber convinced acclaimed director Brian DePalma that this was not the case.

It was controversial but earned raved reviews and sold millions of copies, but was dubbed unfilmable. In 1987, award-winning author Tom Wolfe wrote The Bonfire of the Vanities a darkly satirical novel about life in New York City in the 1980’s.

Bonfire of the vanities author