Director Mary Harron adapted a novel by scandal noodle author Bret Easton Ellis over 20 years ago and turned Christian Bale into one of cinema’s most disturbing killers. Is the world ready for a modern remake?
Patrick Bateman – the man, the killer, the meme. When the serial killer from American Psycho appeared on the big screen in 2000 in the guise of Christian Bale, audiences quickly realized that this satirical psychological thriller wanted to do more than just thrill them. With a lot of blood and black humor, screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis and director Mary Harron brutally denounced the misanthropic mindset of corporate America and Wall Street wolves.
But what would an American psycho look like today? A creative team under the banner of Lionsgate will soon have to ask themselves this question, because as Hollywood journalist Jeffrey Sneider from The InSneider claims to have learned, a modern remake of American Psycho was recently sent into development.
What is American Psycho about?
New York City at the end of the 1980s: Patrick Bateman (Bale) is an investment banker who is as successful as he is slimy, who tells his secretary how to dress and measures himself against his clone-like colleagues using expensive business cards. But unlike other Wall Street zampanos, Patrick almost only pretends to be a member of the human race, from which he has long since mentally cut himself off.
(American Psycho)
A man who has everything, possesses the perfect body, frequents the most exclusive restaurants in town – and yet is not satisfied until he has brought the odd homeless man or the occasional sex worker around the corner.
After the murder of his colleague Paul Allen (Jared Leto), an investigator (Willem Dafoe) finally seems to be on to him. But in the ‘Murika of the markets, the changing reality ends up favoring the white man with money…
