Elvis star Austin Butler will play 1980s yuppie psychopath Patrick Bateman in director Luca Guadagnino’s new American Psycho.
Luca Guadagnino has released two films in cinemas this year: Challengers and Queer. The filmmaker has also wrapped filming on After The Hunt starring Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, which is coming next year courtesy of Amazon. Hopefully it will see the inside of a cinema, too.
The filmmaker has a few other irons in the fire too, including a take on the DC Comics character, Sgt Rock which is set to feature Daniel Craig in the title role. However, it’s looking increasingly like the filmmaker’s next project to go before cameras will be his version of American Psycho, the Brett Easton Ellis novel about Patrick Bateman, a narcissistic Wall Street yuppie who’s also a serial killer.
According to Variety, Guadagnino has cast the lead role, and despite rumours that Jacob Elordi was in line to play Bateman, the outlet is reporting that Austin Butler has secured the part. Ever since collaborating with Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino in 2019, barely a year has gone by without Butler working with at least one esteemed filmmaker. In that time, the actor has worked with Baz Luhrmann, Jeff Nichols, Denis Villeneuve and this year alone has wrapped production on projects for Darren Aronofsky and Ari Aster.
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American Psycho adaptation will be a unique challenge for Butler, given that he’ll be stepping into the role of a character that has already been portrayed this century, and very memorably too. Christian Bale’s turn as Bateman in Mary Herron’s admired 2000 film is a performance that still invites discussion almost a quarter of a century later. Guadagnino has previously said his film isn’t a remake, so hopefully this new spin on the material gives Butler ample opportunity to step out of the shadow of Bale’s sensational turn.
Scott Z Burns is penning the script for this new American Psycho. Meanwhile, according to long-standing rumours, Butler could be set to continue the story of Val Kilmer’s Chris Silheris in Michael Mann’s Heat 2. As it stands, we’re not sure which of these projects will enter production first next year (given that Heat 2's momentum seems to be slowing somewhat) but when we hear more, we’ll let you know.
