Wall Street (1987 film)

Wall Street
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Oliver Stone
Written by	Oliver Stone Stanley Weiser
Produced by	Edward R. Pressman
Starring	Michael Douglas Charlie Sheen Daryl Hannah Martin Sheen Hal Holbrook Terence Stamp
Cinematography	Robert Richardson
Edited by	Claire Simpson
Music by	Stewart Copeland
Production companies	American Entertainment Partners Amercent Films
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	December 11, 1987 (1987-12-11) (US)
Running time	126 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$16.5 million[1]
Box office	$43.8 million (theatrical rentals)[2]

Wall Street is a 1987 American crime drama film, directed and co-written by Oliver Stone, which stars Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Daryl Hannah, and Martin Sheen. The film tells the story of Bud Fox (C. Sheen), a young stockbroker who becomes involved with Gordon Gekko (Douglas), a wealthy, unscrupulous corporate raider.

Stone made the film as a tribute to his father, Lou Stone, a stockbroker during the Great Depression. The character of Gekko is said to be a composite of several people, including Dennis Levine, Ivan Boesky, Carl Icahn, Asher Edelman, Michael Milken, and Stone himself. The character of Sir Lawrence Wildman, meanwhile, was modelled on British financier and corporate raider Sir James Goldsmith. Originally, the studio wanted Warren Beatty to play Gekko, but he was not interested; Stone, meanwhile, wanted Richard Gere, but Gere passed on the role.

The film was well received among major film critics. Douglas won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and the film has come to be seen as the archetypal portrayal of 1980s excess, with Douglas' character declaring that "greed, for lack of a better word, is good." It has also proven influential in inspiring people to work on Wall Street, with Sheen, Douglas, and Stone commenting over the years how people still approach them and say that they became stockbrokers because of their respective characters in the film.

Stone and Douglas reunited for a sequel titled Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which was released theatrically on September 24, 2010.