Premiered on this date 25 years ago, "American Psycho" shocked audiences with its razor-sharp satire, unsettling violence, and unforgettable portrayal of Patrick Bateman—an investment banking executive by day and a deranged serial killer by night.
Directed by Mary Harron and based on Bret Easton Ellis' controversial 1991 novel, was initially met with mixed reactions due to its brutal content. However, over time, the film gained a cult following for its dark humor, social commentary. The cast included Reese Witherspoon, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Mathis, and Chloë Sevigny. the book and the film has since carved out a permanent spot in pop culture history.
The film had a sleek style and a cutting-edge soundtrack, featuring tracks from David Bowie, Huey Lewis and the News, and New Order—helped define its era. On a $7 million budget, American Psycho grossed over $34 million worldwide, proving its staying power despite the controversy surrounding it.
25 years later, the film remains a brutal mirror of consumer culture, toxic masculinity, and the thin line between sanity and madness. American Psycho is a satirical dark comedy penned by American author Bret Easton Ellis. The narrative follows the story of high society socialite cum investment banker Patrick Bateman who lives a dual life as a murderous psychopath. Ellis confessed that the basic premise of American Psycho came to fruition as a result of the consumer driven yuppie culture that was prevailing at that time, "I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself.
The book received a negative backlash when it debuted with the author even receiving hate mail and death threats for his polarizing creative output. Many feminist activists and organizations further lambasted Ellis's effort due to its graphic depiction of violence against women. But despite the properties' controversial nature, producer Edward R. Pressman showed a keen interest in adapting the novel to a feature film, after Johnny Depp expressed interest in it.
American Psycho wasn’t the first Bret Easton Ellis's film-adaptation effort. His first novel, Less Than Zero, also received the big screen treatment back in 1987 but Ellis was far from pleased by the adaptation. Because of this Ellis preferred to adapt American Psycho if he was given the opportunity to do so. The writer's dream came true when he got hired to write the screenplay when David Cronenberg and Brad Pitt were attached to direct and star at one point. Re-Animator helmer Stuart Gordon and Johnny Depp had, at that point, moved on with other projects due to the delayed nature of the adapting process.
However, in spite of authoring American Psycho, Ellis struggled with script development since Cronenberg wanted to excise large chunks of the novel which played an integral role in the narrative and specifically instructed that the script be confined to around 70 pages. The myriad changes resulted in the screenplay diverging from the source material in a big way and as three and a half years had elapsed Ellis had gotten completely fed up with what he was burdened with. The sheer boredom resulted in Ellis crafting an elaborate musical sequence to the tune of Barry Manilow's "Daybreak" as the film’s grand finale in his final draft.
Finding that Ellis could not give what he wanted, Cronenberg hired Dead Ringers' scribe Norman Snider to take a stab at script development. However, Snider too failed at the task and eventually both Cronenberg and Pitt departed the long stagnating project. Ellis ended up writing another draft for producer Rob Weiss, who went on to co-produce American Psycho, but that iteration too failed to materialize. Frustrated, Edward R. Pressman even attempted to pre-sell the property at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival but was unable to secure a potential buyer.
Mary Harron was drawn to the property due to its “risky” nature, but following the success of I Shot Andy Warhol, which premiered at the 49th Cannes Film Festival to glowing reviews, Mary Harron was on the lookout for a project that would stimulate her artistic soul. And it came in the form of a phone call from one Roberta Hanley – who ran the production company which held the film rights to American Psycho – with a tantalizing offer to direct the movie.
At first, however, Harron was skeptical since she found the content of the novel too dark and violent. But then, the filmmaker realized that the time was right to adapt the property and focus on a more satirical, social commentary heavy version of the book's narrative. Since Harron was uninterested in the other offers she received, she decided to make American Psycho due to its inherently "risky" nature.
However, Harron requested that she'd like to take a crack at the screenplay as well, since the previous drafts didn’t quite appeal to her as a creative. The producers agreed and Harron came on board as the film's writer and director. About the cast, 25 years ago Bale was a relative unknown who's biggest credit up to that point was Steven Spielberg's war epic Empire of the Sun which was shot in 1987 when Bale was only 13-years-old, and Lionsgate were adamant that the up-and-coming actor wasn't the right choice for their lead. This led to a bitter fallout between the studio and Harron which resulted in her exiting the project altogether.
Willem Dafoe requires no introduction. The gifted character actor has made a name for himself by working with auteur filmmakers. The actor received wide recognition, however, for his brilliant portrayal of Norman Osbourne a.k.a Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films. During the shoot Mary Harron instructed the talented Dafoe to give three different performances for three different takes of the same scene – one where Dafoe’s Detective Kimball knew Bateman was Paul Allen’s murderer, another where he appeared to suspect Bateman and the last one where Kimball appeared to not even suspect Bateman. These three different takes were then stitched together during editing process in order to obfuscate audiences. Jared Leto has developed something of a polarizing reputation amongst both film critics and audiences. For the pivotal involving Leto in American Psycho, director Mary Harron and Christian Bale purposefully excluded the actor during rehearsals in order to illicit a more genuine response by him when the scene is actually shot.
Shooting in Toronto proved to be a challenging affair for all due to the controversial nature of the novel and because of reports that serial killer and rapist Paul Kenneth Bernardo owned a copy of the book whilst engaging in a killing spree in the district of Toronto between 1987 and 1990, anti-violence advocates urged Toronto City Hall to deny the production of American Psycho to shoot in Toronto. Because of this, Harron & co. had trouble securing shooting locations in the vicinity to carry out filming. To avoid unnecessary problems due to ongoing protests, the production removed the title from daily call sheets and parking permits during filming.
One of the film's most costliest aspects were purchasing the rights to various songs, obviously the music was one of the most key elements, along with the original score crafted by Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale, who also scored I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho features a sublime soundtrack 1980s pop music from a variety of artists which include the likes of Phil Collins, David Bowie, New Order, Robert Palmer, Rakim, Erik B. and the Mediæval Bæbes. The producers were able to secure licenses for most of the songs they sought, but the controversial nature of the property led to some artists declining the use of their songs like Whitney Houston who didn't allow the usage of her song "The Greatest Love of All". Production ended up using an orchestral version of the song for the movie, instead. The Huey Lewis and the News song "Hip to Be Square" which appears in a pivotal moment in the movie was also removed from the soundtrack album, as the song was included without the band's permission.
Made on a production budget of $7 million American Psycho went on to make a respectable $34 million at the worldwide box office. The movie debuted at the Cannes Film Festival polarizing audiences and critics both but unanimous praise was showered on the star making turn dished out by lead actor Christian Bale. Veteran film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, showering praise on the female perspective brought by Harron and writer Guinevere Turner because they depict Bateman not as a psychologically disturbed aberration, but as a certain type of selfish, ego-driven male behavior taken to an abhorrent extreme. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weakley gave the film an A− rating, writing, “By treating the book as raw material for an exuberantly perverse exercise in '80s Nostalgia, Harron recasts the go-go years as a template for the casually brainwashing-consumer/fashion/image culture that emerged from them. She has made a movie that is really a parable of today”.he success of the film cemented Christian Bale's reputation as Hollywood's next leading man
A new generation is getting ready to meet Patrick Bateman all over again. A remake is officially in the works, with director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All) at the helm. Austin Butler (Elvis) has been cast as the new Bateman, setting the stage for a stylish and intense reimagining of the psychopathic executive.
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