Hold on. An American Psycho sequel? On television? What?
The novel told the story of a wealthy young investment banker in the late 1980s who moonlit as a serial killer. A film version starring Christian Bale was released in 2000. The FX version will be set years after the events in the book and star a Bateman in his 50s who takes on a new apprentice.
The official logline: “In the new drama series, iconic serial killer Patrick Bateman, now in his mid-50’s but as outrageous and lethal as ever, takes on a protégé in a sadistic social experiment who will become every bit his equal — a next generation American Psycho.” [EW]
Here’s the thing.
On one hand, making a sequel to a popular film over a decade after the most recent installment and having it focus on the now-aging main character training a protégé does not exactly have a sparkling, unimpeachable track record. Think about your Godfather 3s and your Wall Street: Money Never Sleepses, and so on. People who liked the originals do not necessarily want to see gray-haired versions of their favorite brash, action-seeking characters sitting around and pontificating about life lessons they’ve picked up in the years since they last appeared on a small- or big-screen. (See also, that rumor about Bill Murray mailing a shredded copy of the Ghostbusters 3 script to Dan Aykroyd and attaching a note that said “No one wants to pay money to see fat, old men chasing ghosts!”)
But on the other hand, and this is mostly because I’m a kind-hearted person who wants to see the good in most things and people, FX does have a mostly sparkling, unimpeachable track record, especially on the drama side. If a broadcast network — or even AMC, given some of their recent missteps — had been the one behind this, I’d be way, way less optimistic. So we’ll see.
Hopefully someone will have the good sense to take an ax to this if need be.
