Filling the role of Patrick Bateman seems to be a difficult assignment.

The titular main character in Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel American Psycho, Bateman is an investment banker by day and (possibly) a violent killer by night. Christian Bale famously portrayed him in the 2000 film of the same name, directed by Mary Harron.

Harron has said that she struggled when filling the role, telling Vulture magazine in 2020 that “if someone isn’t 100 percent on a role like [Bateman], you can’t cast them and they shouldn’t do it” She eventually convinced Bale to read the script, penned by Guinevere Turner, and he agreed to take the part.

Harron told MovieMaker in 2020 that Bale “saw the part the way that I did, and he got the humor of it”. When auditioning others she “had the feeling a lot of the other actors kind of thought Bateman was cool”. Bale, she said, did not.

Flash forward 26 years, and now director Luca Guadagnino is remaking American Psycho from a script by Scott Z. Burns, and he has yet to find his Bateman.

“A couple of high-profile actors, whom I can’t name, have turned it down,” Ellis recently commented on his podcast The Shards. “I think maybe because they don’t want to be in the shoes of Christian Bale.”

Austin Butler (Caught Stealing, Elvis) has been in talks with the studio (Lionsgate is also behind the remake) but hasn’t signed the dotted line yet. Casting is still ongoing.

Ellis said on his show that Burns has completed a new draft of the script after several actors passed on the previous version.

“From what I’m told, this movie is completely different from Mary Harron’s 2000 movie,” Ellis said. “It’s a completely different take and going to bear no resemblance to that movie.”

While it’s true that anyone taking the role is going to be acting in the very large shadow left by Bale’s tour-de-force performance, could the script, or perhaps the film’s take on the story, be part of the reason why the role has been passed on so far?

Under Harron’s direction and with Turner’s script, the original American Psycho was a shockingly feminist take on a character that is misogynistic to the point of violence. The film is more a damnation of toxic masculinity and patriarchal structures than a glorification of same.

Without having read it, it’s impossible to say if the story, as interpreted by two men, is somehow less appealing to potential lead actors than it was as told by a female writer-director team. But it’s definitely a possibility. Then again, Harron initially had trouble getting a male actor who could see her vision for the character. Once the movie is produced, with whoever ends up essaying the title role, we will be able to judge the difference between the two.