Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates, Dianne Wiest and Jason Robards, and based on the novel by Jay McInerney, who also wrote the screenplay.

He is also still reeling from the death of his mother from cancer a year earlier, and actively follows a tabloid story about a pregnant woman in a coma.

Jamie's maternal co-worker Megan attempts to help him find a new job, as well as open up during a dinner about his troubled life and the reason Amanda left him.

Jamie reacts angrily at Michael's claim that he has been ignoring his family since the death of their mother and refuses to talk about his life or feelings.

Jamie exits the bathroom, declining Tad's offer to spend more time together, stating loudly across the room, "You know what I just realized?

He then walks down to the pier, sits down and looks at the city across the river, pondering and deciding that today will be a better day to get his life back on track.

In 1984, Robert Lawrence, a vice president at Columbia Pictures, championed Jay McInerney's novel against resistance from older executives.

[2] At one point, Judd Nelson, Estevez, Zach Galligan, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Rob Lowe were all considered for the role of Allagash.

[4] The producers hired a crew, many of whom had worked with Pollack, while Chopra brought along the cinematographer from her first film, Smooth Talk, James Glennon.

[2] Fox had to be back in Los Angeles to start taping his television series Family Ties by mid-July, giving Chopra only ten weeks to finish the film.

[2] In seven days, Bridges wrote a new draft bringing back the darker elements of the novel such as the main character's heavy drinking and drug abuse and replaced six actors, casting instead Jason Robards, John Houseman, Swoosie Kurtz, Frances Sternhagen, and Tracy Pollan, while keeping Sutherland and Dianne Wiest.

[2] The filmmakers shot two different endings—one where Fox's character decides to start his life all over but is vague with what he specifically plans to do and an alternative one, to please the studio, where he has finished writing a novel to be called Bright Lights, Big City with a new girlfriend who is proud of what he has written.

[2] Bright Lights, Big City was released on April 1, 1988, in 1,196 theaters, and grossed USD $5.1 million during its opening weekend.

Fox, who in The Secret of My Succe$s showed a gift for light comedy, is too stylized a performer for the heavier stuff; he has no natural weight.

[8] However, Roger Ebert praised the actor's performance: "Fox is very good in the central role (he has a long drunken monologue that is the best thing he has ever done in a movie)".

What could have become a compelling look at a seminal novel of the 1980s and its rocky path through Hollywood ends up being a rudimentary release with a couple of decent commentary tracks and two forgettable featurettes".

[11] On July 31, 2010, the story's author stated in an NPR All Things Considered interview that Gossip Girl co-creator Josh Schwartz would remake an updated version of the film.