American Psycho is potentially getting a remake, which actually isn’t a bad idea given Patrick Bateman’s satirical potential — it should just be set in a different era than the 1980s. The prior adaption of American Psycho starring Christian Bale, Reese Witherspoon, Justin Theroux, Chloë Sevigny, Jared Leto, and Willem Dafoe, is a pitch-black satire that uses its setting to the full extent of its potential. While it gives the original a stylistic element that feels completely lived in, it also makes any future attempts to recreate the exact style of the film repetitive.
Instead, American Psycho‘s characters’ timeless themes and elements make it an ideal film to reimagine in different eras. Reimagining Bateman for different eras could highlight what makes the character scary on a fundamental level while offering new filmmakers a chance to highlight the flaws of a particular era with darkly satirical horror. The central themes of American Psycho make it an interesting prospect for a new approach, but only if the filmmakers get the chance to make it something unique and their own — and the first step to ensuring that is to move the story to a different time period.
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The American Psycho Remake Shouldn’t Be Set In The 1980s
American Psycho Can Work Outside Its Original Setting
American Psycho overtly leans into its iconic 1980s setting, something a prospective remake of the story should try to avoid. Mary Harron’s American Psycho was released in 2000 and is heavily rooted in the culture of 1987. The film fleshes out the twisted Patrick Bateman against a vivid illustration of his world, highlighting the scope of his actions in the vapid and comfortable life around him. It’s hard to imagine any American Psycho remake being capable of matching such a specific recreation of the era, making it a serious potential trap for any remake.
A more interesting prospect would be to place a remake in a different period, and explore the broad strokes and themes of American Psycho from a different setting. This would help any prospective American Psycho to be its own story outside of just reprising Bateman’s story. It could approach a different era of modern society and explore its dark potential. It would give filmmakers and actors a chance to position the character of Patrick Bateman with a more specific and unique touch, as opposed to directly repeating the Christian Bale-led film and its aesthetic elements.
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How The American Psycho Remake Could Work In Different Eras
Why Patrick Bateman Is Scary, No Matter What Era He Lives In
American Psycho is a near-perfect dark satire, a pitch-black horror-comedy that puts the viewer right alongside the killer in high society. That’s a compelling story and one that the 2000 film plants deeply into 1987.. American Psycho was so firmly rooted in the 1980s culture that it’ll be hard to recreate it without forcing audiences to draw obvious comparisons. Instead, a more interesting approach would relocate Patrick Batman’s story to a different era. Across American history, there are plenty of cultural periods that could well serve the story and themes of American Psycho.
Setting it in the Gilded Age of the 1920s could lean harder into the period-piece aspects. Setting an American Psycho remake in the mid-2000s could fit well into the era, creating a horror-tinted take on The Big Short. Moving Patrick Bateman decades later could be used as a way to satirize wealthy masculinity in a post-CoVid world, reimagining Bateman in an era of the Tech-Bros, the Alt-Right, and the Manosphere. Any of these alternate settings could help an American Psycho remake stand out from the original while retaining the core elements of what makes the story so compelling.
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Why American Psycho Is A Timeless Story
A New Take On Patrick Bateman Isn’t A Bad Idea — But It Needs To Be Unique
American Psycho is a vicious privilege made lethal, a theme that has sadly remained relevant in 2024. Patrick Bateman’s rampage in the film is horrifying but becomes more unsettling because it happens under the radar of a happily ignorant world. Bateman lives in a place where he’ll never face consequences for his actions, and that realization seems to haunt him more than the murders he commits. Christian Bale’s American Psycho is a fantastic film. Simply recreating it would invite likely unfavorable comparisons. However, Patrick Bateman’s potential as a horrifying piece of satire makes him ideal for further adaptation.
Placing Bateman in a different setting would highlight what makes the story so inherently unsettling, and why Bateman is such a scary character. The 1980s elements are a well-constructed window-dressing, something used to flesh out Bateman’s world and give him something concrete to hang a false identity onto. Relocating the story to a different period could highlight one of his scariest elements as a character — the fact that Patrick Batman could exist around any city corner. It would help establish a potential remake of American Psycho as something very different while staying true to the themes of the story.
American Psycho
- Director
- Mary Harron
- Release Date
- April 13, 2000
- Studio(s)
- Lionsgate
- Writers
- Bret Easton Ellis , Mary Harron , Guinevere Turner
- Cast
- Jared Leto , Reese Witherspoon , Chloe Sevigny , Willem Dafoe , Justin Theroux , Christian Bale
