You don’t even need to particularly like American Psycho to recognize that the 2000 film was special. Based on the 1991 book of the same name, the film remains a shockingly nuanced movie about a fairly on-the-nose idea: A soulless money-obsessed yuppie of the 1980s, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), is also a literal murderer. Co-written by director Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner, the screenplay for American Psycho took a challenging novel and pulled off the rare feat of being much better than its source material. While author Bret Easton Ellis often claimed that the point of his book was that Bateman was an unreliable narrator, the strength of the movie is that it defied misreading. Bateman was a monster, and the movie was a dark horror/comedy about that titular monster.
But now, we’re going to revisit this all over again. Acclaimed director of excellent films like Call Me by Your Name and Challengers Luca Guadagnino is reportedly in talks to make a new, fresh adaptation straight from Ellis’ text. This proposed remake would be Lionsgate, and would almost certainly look fantastic. In fact, the movie may even be great. But the truth is, we don’t need it and there’s literally nothing that Guadagnino and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns can bring to this concept that will be better, or more transgressive than the original.
