Bones and All & Challengers filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is in final talks to direct a new American Psycho movie at Lionsgate

Challengers helmer Luca Guadagnino sharpens his axe for a new interpretation of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho novel.

Beware of people who invite you to a Huey Lewis and the News listening party, and make sure your business cards aren’t too fancy. Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All) is in final negotiations to direct an American Psycho movie. Guadagnino’s version, which is set to be a new story interpretation, comes from Lionsgate. Scott Z. Burns will write the adaptation, with plans to take creative license with Bret Easton Ellis’s novel.

The following description hails from Amazon’s landing page for Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho novel:

In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

Mary Harron directed the fan-favorite adaptation of Ellis’s novel, starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a wealthy New York City investment banking executive who hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent, hedonistic fantasies. Justin Theroux, Reese Witherspoon, Chloë Sevigny, Bill Sage, Josh Lucas, Samantha Mathis, and Jared Leto join Bale for Harron’s take on the twisted tale of ego, jealousy, and delusion. Harron’s film is considered by many to be a cult classic, with fans dressing as Bateman for Halloween and re-creating the disturbing “Huey Lewis and the News” murder scene online, with disclaimers, of course.

Sources close to Luca Guadagnino’s American Psycho project say it’s not a remake and that the studio has been waiting for the perfect filmmaker to provide a fresh take on the story. Guadagnino is a master of presenting audiences with manipulative characters, making him an excellent fit for the American Psycho premise.

Do you think Luca Guadagnino is a fantastic fit to bring American Psycho back into the limelight? Let us know in the comments section below.

About the Author

Born and raised in New York, then immigrated to Canada, Steve Seigh has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. He started with Ink & Pixel, a column celebrating the magic and evolution of animation, before launching the companion YouTube series Animation Movies Revisited. He’s also the host of the Talking Comics Podcast, a personality-driven audio show focusing on comic books, film, music, and more. You’ll rarely catch him without headphones on his head and pancakes on his breath.