Christian Bale’s American Psycho Is Getting A New Movie Adaptation – And The Director Is Perfect

Earlier this year, we wrote about how Lionsgate wanted to mount a new version of “American Psycho,” and now the studio has found its director: Luca Guadagnino, the director behind “Call Me By Your Name,” “Challengers,” and the 2018 remake of “Suspiria,” who seems to be a perfect choice for this new take.

I say “new take” because there’s an important distinction to be made here. Per the report in Deadline, Guadagnino is not remaking the 2000 movie written and directed by Mary Harron, which stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street finance bro who also happens to be a vicious serial killer. Instead, Guadagnino is re-adapting the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, which is a lot sicker and more twisted than the film (anyone familiar with the source material will remember the whole zoo subplot, for one thing).

There’s very little information about this project other than the fact that it’s in the works, but Guadagnino, who’s currently promoting his latest film “Queer” — which itself is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ classic book of the same name — is an excellent choice for this adaptation. The Italian-born director has a wry sensibility, an sharp eye (that often creates striking and even shocking images), and thanks to films like “Suspiria” and “Bones and All,” we know he can make a seriously creepy movie. This all brings up an important question, though: Who could possibly play Patrick Bateman in Guadagnino’s “American Psycho?”

Join me in wild speculation for a moment, won’t you? Yes, the film has only just been announced, but let’s have some fun and wonder who could possibly fill Christian Bale’s large, bloodsoaked shoes and play Patrick Bateman for a new generation. Jacob Elordi feels like a sort of obvious choice; if you’ve watched “Euphoria,” you know that he broods like a champion, and his giant, hulking, Australian frame could make a really intimidating Patrick. Robert Pattinson would absolutely bring some extremely weird energy to the role — as is his style these days — but he’s probably a little long in the tooth; Patrick is only supposed to be in his 20s, and Pattinson is pushing 40. (He could still probably pull it off, but it might be a slight logistical issue.)

So who should play Patrick Bateman, the smug, fourth-wall breaking “protagonist” of “American Psycho?” My contribution to the inevitable discourse: Mike Faist, who already collaborated with Luca Guadagnino on 2024’s “Challengers.” Faist should, by all rights, be a way bigger star at this point — hell, he should have gotten an Oscar nod for his take on Riff in Steven Spielberg’s criminally underrated remake of “West Side Story” — and he has the potential to bring a wild new energy to the character. Faist can switch between sweet (or even borderline naïve) and sinister in no time at all; he’d make an incredible Bateman.

Luca Guadagnino’s films can be somewhat divisive — fans of Dario Argento’s original take on “Suspiria” are definitely split about his remake, which stars Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton — but there’s no denying that the director has a unique talent for taking on dark, strange stories and making them into something cinematically fascinating. Guadagnino had been directing for years before he really hit the Hollywood A-list with 2017’s “Call Me By Your Name,” an adaptation of André Aciman’s romantic novel starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer (which marked the third film in what Guadagnino calls his “Desire” trilogy, after “I Am Love” in 2009 and “A Bigger Splash” in 2015), and that movie launched him into the stratosphere. After “Call Me By Your Name” earned multiple Oscar nods, including one for Chalamet’s performance, one for its screenplay, and one for Best Picture, Guadagnino moved on to projects like “Suspiria,” the 2020 HBO miniseries “We Are Who We Are,” and 2022’s “Bones and All,” which reunited Chalamet and Guadagnino and focused on, for lack of a better term, “sexy cannibalism.”

It might be 2024’s “Challengers,” though, that really explains why Guadagnino is the right choice for this new take on “American Psycho.” The relatively straightforward story, about a romantic and professional entanglement between three entangled tennis players, takes several weird, dirty, and astonishing turns; at one point during a match between Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), the camera seemingly lodges itself in the tennis ball to amp up the tension. Somehow, this weird move totally works, so we can definitely expect some seriously delightful weirdness from Guadagnino’s “American Psycho” as well.