Sharon Stone Says She Can’t Stop the Release of ‘Basic Instinct’ Restoration and ‘XXX Cut’

Zack Sharf
·2 min read
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Sharon Stone recently told the Australian interview show “A Current Affair” (via Yahoo) that she is powerless when it comes to stopping the upcoming theatrical release of Paul Verhoeven’s “Basic Instinct” 4K restoration. The director supervised the restoration between 2019 and 2020, and put “bonus material from Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas” back into the movie, according to a press release from UK distributor StudioCanal. The restoration is being released this summer to mark the film’s 30th anniversary.

“They’ve decided to release the director’s triple-X cut for the 30th anniversary,” Stone told “A Current Affair” host Tracy Grimshaw, who then asked if Stone could do anything to prevent the movie from being re-released. “There are new [Screen Actors Guild] rules about that have been made and created, but they were made after I, as a young lady, made this film, and so they don’t apply to me.”

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In Stone’s recently released memoir “The Beauty of Living Twice,” she writes about the infamous “Basic Instinct” scene in which she uncrosses her legs during an interrogation scene and is seen with brief full-frontal nudity. The actress says she was misled about what the scene was actually going to be and added that she didn’t know her genitals were exposed in the movie until a screening filled with agents and lawyers.

“That was how I saw my vagina-shot for the first time, long after I’d been told, ‘We can’t see anything — I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on,’” Stone writes. “Now, here is the issue. It didn’t matter anymore. It was me and my parts up there. I had decisions to make.”

Stone adds she confronted Verhoeven after the screening, writing, “I went to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer, Marty Singer. Marty told me that they could not release this film as it was. That I could get an injunction. First, at that time, this would give the film an X rating. Remember, this was 1992, not now, when we see erect penises on Netflix.”

StudioCanal is set to release the “Basic Instinct” 4K restoration in France beginning June 16, followed by a June 17 launch in Australia and New Zealand. The restoration will also be available on Blu-ray and DVD in the United Kingdom (June 14) and Germany (June 17 2021). Rialto Pictures will be behind the restoration’s U.S. theatrical release, which will take place later this year.

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