It goes about as well as you'd expect. The film differs a lot from the book - it's less violent, some of the jokes are jettisoned for practicality - but it is still a wicked piece of satire and black comedy. If you can find it, watch it. It's one of the funniest things you'll see. It's an underrated classic that not many people in the mainstream have heard of. So naturally, Hollywood want to remake it.
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| He's ecstatic. |
Yes, now that it's over ten years old, American Psycho is the latest property to get tarted up in new clothes assembled by bored music video directors looking to make waves, with Lionsgate ordering a script to be written and directed by Noble Jones, whose biggest credit to date is second-unit director on The Social Network. What with all those 80's horror film remakes (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Fright Night, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street) routinely getting stretched over a pommel horse by the critics, the studios are evidently trying a different tack. First came the prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing, confusingly also titled The Thing, and now they're remaking a film that's set in the 80's.
Let's look at why this is a bad idea, and in a way that hopefully won't lead to me dumping molten lead over Lionsgate or Jones' heads:
1) Why remake it?
American Psycho is tailor-made for a specific purpose - lacerating the excess and shallow culture of 1980's America, the whole "Greed is good" message Gordon Gecko espoused in Wall Street. Ellis considered the book a response to the whole yuppie culture:
'It initiated because (of) my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. 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. That is where the tension of "American Psycho" came from.'
The only other reason I can think of why this is being remade is because of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and there was already another film about Wall Street not too long ago. The problem is that, right now, things are not as ridiculous or extravagant as they were in the 80's. The outfits and hair were cartoonish, the music was almost entirely embarrassing soft rock, and it was much more materialistic. You could argue that the latter point can be matched today, but having a Walkman in the 80s put you above lesser mortals. These days, everyone has an iPod, or a smartphone.
Most of the humour is driven by making fun of this excess, and the change in tastes, such as Bateman gushing about Phil Collins and Whitney Houston, who he seems to think is a sophisticated jazz singer. Jokes from hindsight. If you were to set the film today, who would be your prime targets? Justin Bieber? (Because God knows we don't have enough "bieber is a lesbian lolololol" jokes circulating the Internet) Pitbull? Ke$ha? They seem topical, but they're going to date quickly. Something the original was aware of.
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| "I think 'Tik Tok' is Kesha's undisputed masterpiece. It's a mediation on time, and how fleeting it flies when you're having fun. But it's also about rebelling against time, like how she adores Mick Jagger, a man well-past his physical prime, and that "the party don't stop" even when time runs out. Chantelle, on your knees, I left the hanger somewhere." (Lionsgate, you can have that one. All I ask for in return is $10,000.) |
2) Who is your lead battling against?
Prior to American Psycho, Christian Bale was known only to critics for his role as Jim in Empire of the Sun when he was 13. He starred in a few things in between, like Pocahontas, but it looked like he was fading out of critics' interests. And then this happened. Bale saw the dark streak of humour in the book, and supposedly got the role because no other candidate did. He and director Mary Barron were in hysterics during filming. He could have been just another once-promising child actor gone into the ether, but here he demanded people pay attention.
No, scratch that. He strolled into their houses, shook their hands, and cracked open a bottle of Chardonnay, then loudly called for attention.
Bale got the inspiration for Bateman's overall demeanour by watching Tom Cruise on a talk show, finding all of his mannerisms - the jokes, the smile - to be completely artificial, and marvelled at how hollow he seemed. This is replicated brilliantly by Bale, who plays Patrick Bateman as so smooth and charismatic he appears empty. As he himself puts it:
There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.
Bale's performance was revelatory and downright pitch-perfect. He was terrifying, charming and, crucially, hilarious. The scene where he bangs two prostitutes while admiring his muscles to the tune of Phil Collins' "Sussudio" is a grotesquely funny bit of comedy. Who can you cast to top that? Josh Hammer? Garrett Hedlund? Andrew Garfield? They're all fine actors but however great they are, they're going to be in Bale's shadow, and it will just invite more unfavourable comparisons.
3) Remember the last time you tried to follow up on the original?
A lot of you might not know, but there was a direct-to-video sequel called American Psycho 2: All-American Girl. It wasn't based on any of Ellis' books, and starred Mila Kunis and William Shatner.
We do not talk about this.
4) What are you hoping to achieve from this?
I've had a theory that film studios release bad sequels or remakes of good movies so the original looks even better by comparison. Because otherwise stuff like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, a prequel that detailed the origins of Leatherface and his family of inbred cannibal hicks which apparently we all wanted to know, has no reason to exist.
This is a problem I have with the upcoming Akira remake - what do you get out of this? Common sense would dictate it would be easier to just re-release the original, with remastered sound and image. A friend of mine already mentioned my idea, but it still stands. Put it out for a limited time, meaning tickets are higher in demand, and then follow it up with a DVD/Blu-Ray/digital release a few weeks later. It will save you money. Let's think about the logistics:
You're willing to spend somewhere between $30-50 million, hiring a completely new cast, crew, writer and producers, to make a film that will inevitably end up third in the box office on an off weekend before tailing off into obscurity, and get inevitably compared to the original film before being confined to the back shelves of HMV's horror section. This is what you're going to spend your money on.
Are you sure this is a smart decision?
