‘American Psycho’ TV Show Confirmed for Production

More than 20 years after it debuted, American Psycho is set to make the leap to TV, with a series being confirmed for production. In a conversation with Deadline, Lionsgate Television chairman Kevin Beggs casually dropped the news while discussing other film properties being adapted for TV. “We’ve just wrapped up Dear White People, which was a really good experience. Blindspotting is coming up,” Beggs said.” He then added, “American Psycho is in development. We’re always exploring what we can do in television with something like the Saw franchise, so that’s a conversation.”

Released in 2000, American Psycho is a dark comedy slasher movie, based on Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel of the same name. The film is co-written and directed by Mary Harron, and stars Christian Bale as yuppie NYC investment banker Patrick Bateman, who spends his days in the finance industry and his nights murdering unsuspecting friends and acquaintances. The film was, in many ways, a renaissance for Bale, who had begun his career as a child/teen actor more than a decade earlier.

In addition to Bale, American Psycho also co-starred Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Chloë Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, Guinevere Turner, Reg E. Cathey and Reese Witherspoon. It was considered both critical and financial success, earning more than $34 million on a budget of $7 million. The film has since gone on to gain a cult following.

Bale has since grown to be one of the most well-respected and acclaimed actors of his generation, though, funnily enough, his American Psycho co-stars thought he was a “terrible” actor because they did not understand what he was doing with his approach to the character. “Josh Lucas and I did a film together recently and he opened my eyes to something that I had been unaware of,” Bale was quoted as saying in 2020. “He informed me that all of the other actors thought that I was the worst actor they’d ever seen.”

Bale continued, “He was telling me they kept looking at me and talking about me, saying, ‘Why did Mary fight for this guy? He’s terrible.’ And it wasn’t until he saw the film that he changed his mind. And I was in the dark completely about that critique.” American Psycho is currently streaming on Pluto TV and Cinemax, for subscribers of those individual services. There is no word on when the American Psycho series could debut, or which streamer/network it may ultimately land at.