JOE ESZTERHAS
The Stunt List is proud to present a double feature from one of the most successful screenwriters in history, the legendary JOE ESZTERHAS. His scripts, his films, and his persona have inspired writers for decades, from his record-breaking $3 million payday for Basic Instinct, to his public feuds with super agent Michael Ovitz and Mel Gibson.
In addition to Basic Instinct (and his recent $4 million payday to reboot it), Eszterhas has written Flashdance, Showgirls, Jagged Edge, Music Box, Sliver, and more. He has sold nearly 30 screenplays and the films he has written have grossed over $2 billion at the box office. (See Full Bio Below)
IMPORTANT: The Stunt List was founded in the spirit of showcasing emerging writers. We kindly request that you also take a moment to check out our top script recommendations of the year in our HOT NEW SPECS showcase below, featuring new material from Emmy winning writers to the freshest emerging voices. Additionally, we host several annual script showcases, so please feel free to browse and take a look around. Thank you for your support!
PLEASE NOTE: While Joe Eszterhas is releasing these scripts to the screenwriting community for educational and entertainment purposes, both titles are currently available. Producers may reach out to The Stunt List team who will forward the request.
COMING SOON: Joe Eszterhas will provide screenwriting advice for new writers. Stay tuned for more details!
The first title in our Joe Eszterhas double feature is a classic erotic thriller. It is a brand new unproduced script available exclusively at The Stunt List:
STALKERS
Written by Joe Eszterhas
After a married woman has an affair with a stranger, she is dangerously stalked by him and quickly realizes he will stop at nothing to be with her, even if it means destroying her life.
The second title of our double feature is regarded as one of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood history.
Directors that considered the project included Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Milos Forman, Blake Edwards, Michael Lehmann, Jim Abrahams, Betty Thomas, Tony Bill, David Anspaugh, and Edward James Olmos. Spielberg also sent the script to Stanley Kubrick who called it one of the funniest scripts he ever read.
Actor names mentioned for the lead role of President Sam Parr included Paul Newman, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Duvall, Robin Williams, Billy Bob Thornton, Will Ferrell, and Chevy Chase.
Eszterhas wrote the script in the early 1990’s and hoped that someday America would have a president who would tell the American people the truth, no matter how difficult that truth would be. In today’s world of political division, misinformation, and AI-created deep fakes, this script has never been more relevant and deserves renewed attention.
SACRED COWS
Written by Joe Eszterhas
An incumbent president’s re-election campaign is derailed when his political opponents release a scandalous photo to the tabloids.
MEET THE WRITER
Joe Eszterhas
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000390
Part rebel, part romantic, part outsider, and part moralist, Joe Eszterhas’s life reads like a movie in itself.
Born in Csakanydoroszlo, Hungary, Eszterhas spent his first six years in Austrian refugee camps. He emigrated to the United States with his parents in June of 1950 and rose from being a street kid in the back alleys of Cleveland, Ohio to one of the most successful screenwriters in Hollywood history.
Beginning his writing career in 1966 at the Ohio University, where he was the editor of the Ohio University Post, Eszterhas was chosen as America’s Outstanding College Journalist by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation and awarded a gold medal at the White House.
In 1967 Eszterhas joined The Cleveland Plain Dealer. During his early days as an award-winning reporter and columnist, he covered everything from the shootings at Kent State University to the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Eszterhas’s unconventional style led him to become senior editor at Rolling Stone Magazine. While there he wrote the books Nark, A Tale of Terror (Straight Arrow Press) and Charlie Simpson’s Apocalypse (Random House), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He also interviewed, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, and Charles Manson, among many others.
In 1975, Eszterhas began writing screenplays. In thirty-five years of screenwriting, he has written: Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Flashdance, Betrayed, Music Box, F.I.S.T., Sliver, Jade, Telling Lies in America, Checking Out, Hearts of Fire, Nowhere to Run, An Alan Smithee Film, Big Shots, One Night Stand, Children of Glory, and Showgirls.
He sold his script of Basic Instinct for $3 million, a Hollywood record. (The movie became the biggest-grossing film of 1992 worldwide). He broke his own script-sale record with the sales of Showgirls ($3.7 million) and One-Night Stand ($4 million).
Overall, Eszterhas has sold nearly 30 screenplays. His collection of movies has grossed more than $2 billion at the box office.
In 1990, in a shot heard around the world, he defied super-agent Michael Ovitz and left his agency after Ovitz threatened to destroy his career. His letter to Ovitz was published worldwide.
In 1995, he was awarded the Emanuel Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his work condemning anti-Semitism, especially the films Betrayed (Debra Winger) and Music Box (Jessica Lange).
In 1998, his film about Hungarian immigrants, Telling Lies in America, was one of only two American films selected for the prestigious New York Film Festival.
In 2000, Eszterhas wrote the non-fiction novel American Rhapsody (Knopf), an account of the intersect between politics and Hollywood. The book rose to number four on The New York Times bestseller list. Publishers Weekly wrote: “Eszterhas knows how to write. His prose sizzles and spits across these hot pages. This is outrageously funny... an impossible to ignore lament for America.”
In 2001, Eszterhas was diagnosed with throat cancer. In an op-ed article in The New York Times, he placed blame on himself for “making smoking glamorous” in his films. With the Cleveland Clinic, he founded Join Joe, a grass roots anti-smoking advocacy group. He filmed a series of anti-smoking public service announcements which appeared in theaters and on television nationally.
In 2004, Eszterhas wrote Hollywood Animal, (Knopf), a 736-page memoir which graphically describes his life in and out of Hollywood. It became another New York Times bestseller. Noted critic Richard Schickel, writing in The Los Angeles Times Book Review, called it “Absolutely first rate – painfully, poignantly heartfelt. A compelling and brutally truthful book.”
Eszterhas’s 16th film, Children of Glory, the story of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against Soviet tyranny, was released in 2006 and became the biggest box office hit in Hungarian history.
In 2008, Eszterhas wrote Crossbearer (Random House), a memoir detailing his spiritual conversion. The memoir prompted Christopher Buckley in The New York Times Book Review to write, “Joe Eszterhas writes with his fists. You practically duck as you turn the page.” He has described his spiritual awakening to audiences in California, Oregon and Ohio and has carried the cross in front of thousands at Christian youth festivals.
Eszterhas has appeared on the CBS Evening News, NBC News with Brian Williams, Larry King Live, Hardball with Chris Matthews, 20/20, Good Morning America, Geraldo Rivera, and many other television programs. Hardball devoted a full-hour program to his anti-smoking campaign.
Eszterhas has appeared on the Today show ten times and on Howard Stern three times. He has been profiled in Vanity Fair, GQ, Details, People, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and Time and Newsweek. He has been the subject of the Playboy Interview and of the Sunday New York Times Magazine interview.
Eszterhas has been called a “rogue elephant” (The Los Angeles Times) and the “Che Guevara of screenwriters” (Variety). He has also been called a “force of nature” (The New York Times) and “a living legend” (ABC’s 20/20). Time magazine asked: “If Shakespeare were alive today, would his name be Joe Eszterhas?”
In 2012 Eszterhas contracted with Warner Bros. to write “The Maccabees”, an account of one of the most glorious moments in Jewish history. The film was to be directed by Mel Gibson. Eszterhas accused Gibson of anti-Semitism and was fired from the project. He wrote an Amazon Kindle Single about his differences with Mr. Gibson entitled Heaven and Mel. It became an E-book bestseller.
Eszterhas had previously written about the evils of anti-Semitism in Betrayed and Music Box. In 1990, the Justice Department investigated Eszterhas’s father, Istvan, for alleged war crimes committed in Hungary during World War II. The investigation caused Eszterhas to break his relationship with his beloved father.
Eszterhas recently wrote a screenplay about his once-beloved father — My Flesh and Blood. He has also written a series about a home invasion crew entitled Duct Tape and the screenplay God’s Left Foot, a heartfelt sweeping screenplay about one of his
boyhood idols, Ferenc Puskás, one of the greatest soccer stars in history.
Eszterhas signed a deal in October of 2025 with MGM/Amazon to write the reboot of his iconic film Basic Instinct for $4.25 million. It is currently in pre-production.
Joe Eszterhas lives in Ohio with his wife of 30 years, Naomi, with whom he has four sons – Joe, Nick, John and Luke. He has two grown children from his first marriage.
Also available: The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood
