One of the best horror movies of all time is getting a remake, or rather, one of the best modern horror novels is set for another Hollywood retelling. Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho is set for a brand new adaptation whose existence is already justified due to the director bringing it to life: the Zendaya-starring Challengers and horror-romance Bones and All helmer Luca Guadagnino. Now, an actor from mega-producer Ryan Murphy’s talent stable has voiced an interest in portraying horror’s most stylish slasher Patrick Bateman.
Fittingly enough, at least in some ways, the actor voicing interest in following Christian Bale in the role is Cooper Koch, one of the stars of Netflix's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the second season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's true crime anthology series. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the actor before has likely seen him everywhere since the show debuted in mid-September. Speaking with THR, Koch quickly named the horror remake as a follow-up to his high-profile gig as Erik Menendez, saying:
Luca’s doing American Psycho, so I think I can do Patrick Bateman.
At this point, nothing is in place to officially loop Cooper Koch into Luca Guadagnino's latest film, which will follow his next two films, with Daniel Craig's Queer hitting the 2024 movie schedule, and Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield's After the Hunt being a 2025 theatrical release. That said, him naming American Psycho amidst all the new offers he's been getting could be just what's needed to convince the filmmaker Koch is right for the gig.
The actor continued, pointing out that Bateman would be a very different role from playing convicted killer Erik Menendez. As he put it:
I haven’t played a serial killer yet so I think I could do it. Things are coming in, things are moving, things are happening, taking meetings, and the needle is threading so we’ll see, nothing is locked in or happening yet.
What's more, Cooper Koch also put it out there that his favorite movie of 2024 to date has been Challengers, with the explanation that he's "a big gay tennis boy." So if Guadagnino is the kind of director who is swayed easily by compliments, that's a foot in the door right there. If Koch starts appearing at publicity events wearing blood-covered rain slickers while blasting Huey Lewis & the News from a boombox, that could lock it all down right there.
At this point, Scott Z. Burns is handling scripting duties for the new iteration of American Psycho, and he's reportedly set to deliver an original take on the Ellis novel's storyline of a Wall Street businessman who suddenly begins killing the greed-fueled people he's surrounded by, all while being investigated by Willem Dafoe's wonky detective. But is that actually what's happening? And what happened to that cat?
Presumably these details and more will be explored in the new story, which is coming together nearly 25 years after Mary Harron's original film hit theaters. A modest hit at the time, the film has gained a huge fanbase and reputation as a classic psychological horror that still feels modern despite its unmistakably '80s setting. And Monsters technically hit a lot of the same kinds of period-piece throwback scenes, giving fans a vague idea of what Koch could look like in the role. Just imagine what Erik Mendendez would look like showing off eggshell and bone-white business cards.
It's probably no surprise that someone from Ryan Murphy's expansive list of familiar actors, considering at least half of them at this point have played killers of some kind. I'm not sure if there's a point where Evan Peters hits his limit on playing creepy sickos, but I'd love to see him in the mix as well. Even if he's not Patrick Bateman and only plays one of the other yuppie douches in Patrick's circle of friends, it'd be a treat.
