Before he was Batman, Christian Bale gave an acclaimed performance as Patrick Bateman in Mary Harron’s 2000 feature adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. Both the movie and his casting, were controversial at the time. It went on to be one of his key breakthrough roles and arguably put him in the driving seat for the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman.
While out promoting Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, he was asked about Luca Guadagnino’s new adaptation of American Psycho. The Hollywood Reporter asked him for his views on who should take on the Bateman role: He said whoever is brave enough to take it on should get the shot.
“Whoever wants to give it a shot, give it a pop. I loved making it with [director] Mary Harron so many years back, fantastic memories of it all. Bold choice of anyone to try to do a — I don’t know if they’re doing a remake or what, I don’t know anything else about it. But all the best to ’em, I like brave people.”
There is no casting news yet for the new project. Guadagnino said this would not be a remake of the Bale film, but a whole new take on the book… whatever that means? The original film blends psychological horror and black comedy to satirize 1980s yuppie culture and consumerism, exemplified by Bateman. Maybe the opportunity here is the social media-driven tech-bro world?
Ellis considered his controversial novel unfilmable, so a second adaptation might not have been expected.
Originally, producer Edward R. Pressman was determined to adapt it and bought the film rights in 1992. Stuart Gordon, David Cronenberg, and Rob Weiss considered directing the film before Harron and Guinevere Turner began writing the screenplay in 1996.
Pre-production was challenging, with Harron choosing Bale to play Bateman, but distributor Lions Gate Films sought Leonardo DiCaprio in the role, so they fired Harron and replaced her with Oliver Stone. After DiCaprio and Stone left due to “creative differences,” Lionsgate had to go crawling back to Harron and acquiesce to her casting of Bale.
Scott Z. Burns is writing the script for this new version of American Psycho.
