A New ‘American Psycho’ Movie Is In Development — But Do We Really Need One?

Call Me By Your Name & Challengers director Luca Guadagnino is likely heading into the director’s chair for American Psycho sequel at Lionsgate.

This latest “interpretation”—not remake—has been written by Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum, Contagion, The Report).

A film by the same title was released in 2000 and featured Christian Bale with Mary Harron directing while Guinevere Turner script wrote for her.

Hopefully, by now you already know that Call Me By Your Name and Challengers filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is in the final stages of negotiating to direct another adaptation of American Psycho, in this case for Sam Pressman – the son of Edward R. Pressman who produced the first film – via his Pressman Film banner.

“It is with great pleasure that we announce another world-class director joining this year’s lineup,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group’s chairman, Adam Fogelson.

“Luca is an incredibly talented designer, and the right creative mind to build from scratch a new and fresh take for such a strong and timeless brand image.”

Of course, what with all the questions surrounding who will be picking up the roles of the infamous Patrick Bateman – a role played to an almost-cartoonish perfection by Christian Bale – there isn’t much left to say that hasn’t been touched on a few times already. But the more pertinent question is: do we need this modern version at all?

It’s possible to continue the original idea of Mary Herron’s 2000 adaptation, as well as the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, but bro-dom and alpha/sigma male cult a la Fight Club have been dominating the work over it. And that maybe if they tried again, the second time around it cannot be that vague of a message.

This, however does not guarantee that it will be much better Than that which has been given out as a movie. Or even anything anywhere near the first, closer to which should ideally be the aim on par. But, on the positive side, there is no one more appropriate for auteurism than Luca Guadagnino.

Between his forays into horror with a succesful Suspiria remake (in 2018) and the cannibal-tic Bones & All; as well as his slowly bubbling over peek at obsession and vanity in the much-discussed Challengers, the idea is certainly compelling (if not much else).

Extra credit for having worked with a potential real-life version of Bateman in the form of one-time Hollywood hottie turned cannibalism suspect Armie Hammer.

We’ll keep you updated on the new American Psycho movie as and when details surface, here. Crossing our fingers in the hopes it becomes a fun and creative rendition — and not the mess which turned out to be a straight to video sequel to all of that with Mila Kunis.