Austin Butler has been cast as the lead in Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of American Psycho.
The Elvis star, 33, will portray serial killer Patrick Bateman in the upcoming Lionsgate project, Variety confirmed on Wednesday (December 11). The film, which features a script by award-winning screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, will not be a remake of the 2000 film but rather a new adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s thriller novel.
In the two months since it was announced the Queer director will be spearheading a new interpretation of the 1991 book, there’s been much speculation that Euphoria star Jacob Elordi would portray the role popularized by Christian Bale in the original film adaptation.
While it’s unclear why Elordi’s casting didn’t come to fruition, it’s not the first time he and Butler have shared a similar connection; they both played very different versions of rocker Elvis Presley in movies by Sofia Coppola (Priscilla) and Baz Luhrmann (Elvis).
The novel — set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s — follows the story of investment banker Bateman, who lives a double life as a serial killer. Although details about Burns’s screenplay have yet to be revealed, it’s likely that Guadagnino — known for other films such as Call Me By Your Name and Challengers — will take on a new, erotic adaptation of the popular book.
The Lionsgate film will be produced by Frenesy Films and executive produced by Sam Pressman — the son of Edward R. Pressman, producer of the first adaptation, through his company Pressman Film.
The first American Psycho movie was helmed by director Mary Harron with a screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner.
This isn’t the first time the 53-year-old Italian film director has taken a book from the page to the big screen.
Call Me By Your Name, starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer, was adapted in 2017 from the 2007 novel by André Aciman. His 2022 romantic horror film Bones and All, also starring Chalamet, was based on the 2015 novel Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis.
Guadagnino’s latest film Queer, which hits theaters in the U.S. on December 13, was adapted from the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, and stars Daniel Craig opposite Drew Starkey.
Despite his early acting career on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, Butler has since gone on to achieve worldwide recognition for his starring role in Elvis. The Baz Luhrmann biopic, released in 2022, earned Butler the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Most recently, Butler starred in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two as villain Feyd-Rautha.