WHAT WENT WRONG - American Psycho

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Leonardo DiCaprio as Patrick Bateman? Directed by Oliver Stone?! There are so many versions of ‘American Psycho’ (2000) that we never saw, but thanks to Christian Bale and director Mary Harron, we eventually got something pretty close to perfect. Find out how Gloria Steinem accidentally saved Christian Bale’s job and why a real life serial killer made this film almost impossible to shoot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one. And I think we have a very good one. As always, I'm your host, Chris Winterbauer, joined by people's host, Lizzie Bassett, Lizzie. I'm going to kick it over to you to tell the beautiful people which film we're discussing featuring far more beautiful people.

Yeah, the hottest people ever. Before I have to go return some videotapes, we will be talking about... Yeah. We are talking about American Psycho. I'm so excited to walk you through this movie. I really didn't know most of this, so I think it's going to be a pretty fun one.

Before we get into it, Chris, I'm assuming you have seen this movie before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I saw it in high school, did not understand, didn't appreciate the satire at that age. I was like, I think I want to be this guy for the first five minutes. And then... Uh-oh.

Well, because he's so... I mean, he's like beautiful and lives in this amazing apartment. And then I thought, this is weird when he started killing people and being a horrifying, amazingly charismatic or anti-charismatic murderer. But I really appreciate it. I hadn't seen it since. It's probably been 20 years since I've seen this movie. And I had a blast.

I thought it was, if anything, more relevant than ever. Yes. Watching it now, it was so fun hitting scenes where, for example, he's virtue signaling, you know, in those early dinner scenes. Yes. And just the level of consumerism and the way that things are talked about, like on TikTok now, for example, like products and whatnot and product sponsorships and placements. Anyway, it felt more relevant than ever. I really enjoyed it. I really appreciated Christian Bale's performance.

and there's a lot of really great supporting cast around him. But what a great send-up of male vanity and rage. It's incredible. And to your point, you're totally right. I think this movie is extremely ahead of its time in a way that I didn't recognize. I don't think I realized how funny it was. I also had seen this probably in high school. My mom loved this movie.

She does have good taste in movies. She owned this on DVD. So I had seen it more than once. I think, but I remembered it being like horrifying. I did not remember that it is absolutely hilarious, which watching it as an adult, it really comes through. And that's something we're going to talk about a lot today because we're going to find out how this, as Chris pointed out, incredibly funny satire was deeply misunderstood from day one, including by some very allegedly funny people. American Psycho gave us the chance to look consumerism in the mirror, and we didn't like it. But it also gave millions of straight white men Halloween costumes for years to come, and we do like that.

Absolutely. Really love this movie and very excited to dive in. So I do want to give a shout out to Tim Malloy at MovieMaker Magazine, whose very fun article American Psycho and Oral History 20 years after its divisive debut was used as a primary source for this episode, among many others. As always, the basic info, directed by Mary Heron, written by Mary Heron and Gwynnevere Turner based on the novel by Brett East. Ellis, produced by What Went Wrong alum, Edward R. Pressman, starring Christian Bale, Willem Diffoe, Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Seveny, Jared Leto, Justin Thoreau, Matt Ross, Samantha Mathis, Josh Lucas, and many more. It premiered at Sundance on January 21st, 2000, with a theatrical release on April 14th of that year. As always, here's the IMDB logline. A wealthy New York City investment

banking executive, Patrick Bateman, hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent hedonistic fantasies. Or does he? Exactly. Maybe. Yeah. As we'll get to, the ending of this movie is intentionally very ambiguous. More so than I realized when I saw it in my teen years. So let's start with the source material, Chris. Now, I'm sure you know this. Before it was a movie, American Psycho was a novel written by Brett Easton Ellis, the self-proclaimed, quote, of darkness of the literary world. American Psycho takes place in the late 80s and is narrated from the perspective of rich young

investment banker Patrick Bateman, who also happens to be a serial killer again, maybe. Like Humbert Humbert of Lolita before him, Bateman is charming, repulsive, and an unreliable narrator. American Psycho was controversial even before its eventual 1991 publication. Publishing House Simon & Schuster was three months away from releasing American Psycho, when excerpts leaked. The chairman of Simon & Schuster and its parent company, Paramount Communications,

decided they were not hip to be square, and, just kidding, said, we're not publishing this. They cited, quote, an error in judgment to put our name on a book of such questionable taste. Interesting.

And that also puts the book much closer to the Greed is Good, Wall Street, era in Hollywood as well, that had swept the nation, jogging and Walkman and mortgage-backed security. Very much. And most of the uproar surrounded the very graphic descriptions of violence against women in this book. But apparently the very next day, the novel was picked up by vintage books, which caused yet another stir when Gloria Steinem, remember her, she'll be back. Oh, well.

What that? Hold it, swall it. And notable feminist groups called for a boycott of vintage books. An article in the New York Times from December of 1990s, this is before the book was ever published, titled Snuff. this book, Will Brett Easton Ellis Get Away with Murder, called it, quote, so pointless, so themless, so everythingless is this novel, except in stupefying details about expensive clothing, food, and bath products that were it not the most loathsome offering of the season, it certainly would be the funniest. It's supposed to be funny. I was going to say, I think they kind of nailed it. The point is, it's a vacuum. There's nothing to it. That's exactly right. That's Exactly right. Now, people do love controversy, so when it was finally published in 1991, it does quickly become a bestseller, despite receiving mostly pretty bad reviews. I say mostly because there were some people who did understand, as we keep pointing out, that it was, I think, pretty clearly a satire. In her review in The Guardian, author and essayist Fay Weldon wrote, Brett Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer.

He gets us to a T and we can't stand it. It's our problem, not hits. I love that. Also, Ellis was very surprised by the outrage to the book. Shortly after publication, he responded in his own New York Times article writing, quote, during the years I worked on the book, I did not know how violent it would become, but it seemed clear to me that Bateman would describe these acts of brutality in the same numbing excessive detail and flat tone that he recounts everything else. His clothing, his meals,

his workouts at the gym. I was writing about a society in which the surface became the only thing. Interesting. It's also, I think, interesting too, because in a movie you can't fully exist in the perspective of a character. Whereas in a book you can, which I wonder if it feels a little more offensive on the page. I haven't read the book. I haven't either. As opposed to the natural voyeuristic quality of a film kind of by contrast. Obviously, you get some voiceover in the movie that accomplishes that goal. But anyway, it's a good point. I mean, the more I read about this and even rewatching this movie again, the more similarities I saw to Lolita with it, which again is one that's historically been very hard to translate to film. And that I don't know has been as successfully

translated to film as this one was. Now, what was not widely known at the time was that Ellis wrote the novel partly because as a gay man, he himself felt like an outsider looking into these circles of men that he had nothing in common with. So to your point, like, this is very voyeuristic intentionally. The last thing Ellis expected was that someone would want to turn American Psycho into a film, but he hadn't met Edward R. Pressman. Now, you might remember Ed Pressman from our coverage on the island of Dr. Moreau, and more recently, our episode on The Crow. And I'm sure he'll come back because he's got plenty of opportunities. Wild taste. I love him. Yeah. As a producer, he was known for his account.

eclectic taste and frequently spend his own cash money on projects to avoid being stuck in development. Along with edgier movies like The Crow, he also, of course, produced critically acclaimed film such as Terrence Malick's Badlands and, very relevant to this project, Oliver Stone's Wall Street. Pressman acquired the film rights to American Psycho in 1992. Now, this was kind of weird. I saw in some places that it was after Johnny Depp had expressed interest in the role of Patrick Bateman, although the timeline around there is kind of confusing. but it does seem that Johnny Depp was at one point potentially interested.

Got it. So Brett East and Ellis had some initial concerns that the book's structure, or really lack thereof, would not translate well to a film. But Pressman forged ahead. He thought it would. I do think if you have the story engine of trying to keep separate lives separate and one of those lives is a serial killer, probably going to be relatively confident that you can generate enough conflict to sustain a narrative for, you know,

an hour and a half to two hours. Yes. Again, I haven't read the book, but I do think that what Heron does in the movie is pretty impressive based on what was in the book. I agree. I'm saying in terms of the potential

of being there to then go run with it. Yeah. So the book was actually given to Pressman by reanimator director, Stuart Gordon, who wanted to direct it as an ultra-violent black and white film. But according to Pressman themselves, he seemed to think the best version of this movie

would be made by a woman. However, it does take him a little while to actually get there. Several screenwriters and directors were initially attached and then dropped in early development, all with different visions for the adaptation. But finally, iconic body horror director David Cronenberg. Oh. Came on to direct with a resident 90s hunk attached as Bateman. Who was it?

Christian Slater? No. All right, just tell me. Let's not keep the people waiting. If Christian Bale is beautiful, there's maybe only one man who was potentially more beautiful at the time, and that is Brad Pitt. Oh, that... Don't say it would have been better.

No, it's not possible. No, but it's an interesting idea. Brad Pitt as a soulless psychopaths. Yes. Borderline plays that in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It's like almost suggested in a sense. By the way, Brett Easton Ellis initially comes on as the screenwriter himself. And in their early media,

David Cronenberg told Ellis he didn't want scenes in specific locations such as clubs and restaurants, where, of course, many scenes in Bateman's world take place, citing that they are, quote, boring and difficult to shoot. He also asked Ellis to cut the violence and demanded that he keep the script to 70 pages because unlike other directors, he typically shoots two minutes per page. Interesting. If you guys are interested, you could read about David Cronenberg's A History of which he specifically made as a critique of American violence. And it's a really interesting movie. And you can check that out with Vigo Mortensen later on.

Anywho, it makes sense that he would eventually return to the subject. Yes, in a movie that, as I recall, didn't have a whole ton of dialogue, although I could be wrong. So, Breddy Sinellis didn't exactly adhere to these instructions, Chris, calling them, quote, insane. And instead wrote a much longer script that was a large departure from the novel and ended with Patrick Bateman dancing atop the World Trade Center in a grand musical finale, which if I'm being honest, I would like to see. Also, Christian Bale, Newsies, he could do it. Santa Fe!

Yeah. Are you there? My God, good thing his accent got better by the time this one came around. I love Newsies, but... Newsies is great. So his reason for these changes was that he was bored with the source material after having lived with it for several years. But it also does sound like...

a bit of a fuck year to David Cronenberg. Cronenberg, unsurprisingly, did not like Ellis's draft. Pressman himself has referred to it as pornographic. And another screenwriter was brought on for a new draft in 1994. Cronenberg liked that one even less. And then he subsequently exits the project. Brad Pitt leaves shortly after him. Unclear why Brad Pitt departed.

But it kind of seems like it's falling apart at this point. Sure. So Pressman continues to try to pitch the project at the Cannes Film Festival using a revised script by Ellis, but to no avail. Also, interesting about Pressman, he was pretty unique among producers because he wasn't a big hustler or he wasn't like a showman, I guess, is maybe the way to explain it. He allegedly would just hand out reports to potential investors detailing a slate of films that were in production and pre-production rather than doing the old razzle-dazzle and dropping a bunch of star names. But it didn't work on American Psycho. Nobody was biting.

So the same song and dance continued with additional drafts that never came to fruition, but this all changed in 1996 when Mary Heron came on the scene. Mary Heron is pretty cool. She is a Canadian filmmaker and the daughter of a well-known Canadian actor named Don Heron. Now, Don met Catherine Hepburn at a regional theater production. Bet you didn't think we were going to get to old Catherine Hepburn in this episode. Did not. And she took a shine to him. She helped him get a studio deal with Paramount and the family relocated to Hollywood.

Wow. After the move to Hollywood, her dad left her mom, as one does for actress Virginia Leith, who would start in Stanley Kubrick's first film, Fear and Desire. Checking off some boxes. Here we go. Step two after moving to Hollywood. Now, despite circling around Hollywood in her youth, Heron started out as a journalist.

At Oxford University, Smarty Pants, she was a co-editor for the student newspaper with Anna Wintour's brother. of all people. Oh, wow. Yeah. She went on to cover New York City's emerging punk scene while writing for Punk Magazine, where she was the first journalist of an American publication to interview the Sex Pistols.

Cool. Very cool. She later went on to become a writer for a televised BBC music program and began working in the documentary film world before transitioning to narrative projects. Now, this all led her to co-writing and directing her feature film debut,

I shot Andy Warhol, when she was around 42 years, years old. Right. I shot Andy Warhol, by the way, is about Valerie Salonis, the infamous radical feminist and author of The Scum Manifesto who shot Andy Warhol in 1968. The film debuted at Sundance in the winter of 1996 to rave reviews at the festival, which garnered the attention of Pressman's production company. So she receives a call from Pressman's office to discuss a new opportunity, coming on to direct American Psycho. It's a pretty big move off of your first indie film. You know what I mean?

Like, that's a pretty nice phone call to get. Yeah. I think the connection makes sense in terms of what he was looking for here. Yeah. And I believe him when he said from the beginning, he thought that a woman would be the best to direct this. And then he said, too bad there are no women director. And then he said, well, David Kronenberg will do.

So Pressman sent her in the various screenplay drafts, including Brett Easton Ellis's, which she read and enjoyed parts of, but didn't think it made sense as a film. Right. The others, she said, all lacked humor. and were too moralistic, which I think is really important about her take on this movie and what makes it so good. Karen was a fan of the novel, but told Pressman that she was unsure that a film adaptation would work. But if he wants to give her the money for it, she would try to write her own screenplay.

Basically, she was like, the only way I can control the tone of this movie as a director is if I also write the screenplay, which I think is really smart. And Pressman agreed. And so Pressman paid her to write the draft, just to be clear. I believe so. If that is true, God bless Edward R. Pressman. I mean, she's the credited writer. Yeah, no, no, I know what I'm saying is nowadays, so many producers would just say, yeah, so like write it on spec, we'll take it out, we'll pitch it, you know, hopefully

we'll get you paid at some point. And so I'm just saying, if he did pay her to write the draft initially, that is, you should pay people if they're going to do work for you. I don't know for sure, but I will say with Pressman's reputation, I would not be surprised if he did. I agree. So Mary Heron then enlists her friend and collaborator, Guinevere Turner, to co-write with her. Turner did need some convincing because she was not a fan of scary movies and had never read the book. But once Heron persuaded her to give it a read, which she has joked that she hated Heron for,

she saw what Heron meant and said, let's do it. This makes them something like the sixth team to try and adapt American Psycho at this point, by the So they'd already been working on a project together that would later become the notorious Betty Page. Have you ever seen that? I have, yeah. I liked it. It's really good. And I really like Gretchen Mall from Bordeauxk Empire, maybe most recently, who's great.

Yeah, it's really good. If you all haven't watched it, I do recommend checking that one out. Mary Heron had two thoughts behind teaming up with Guinevere for American Psycho. One is that it would be way more fun if they wrote this together. And two, is that with Turner having recently co-written GoFee, a successful indie lesbian rom-com, and Heron herself, having directed a critically acclaimed film about a radical feminist, no one could accuse their adaptation of American Psycho as being misogynist or anti-feminist.

Just you wait, Mary. Just you wait. No one could credibly accuse them of that. Right. Heron also felt that enough time had passed to make a period film about the 80s, which I think she does. And I don't think I realized it was when I watched this in the 2000s. I assumed it was the 90s because I did too.

15, you know, didn't know any better. I just saw the huge phones and assumed that it was like my dad's car phone. Right. So one thing that Mary was explicitly not interested in was Patrick Bateman's backstory or exploring what caused him to commit such brutal murders. Chris, what do you think about the fact that we get essentially no explanation for why he is the way he is? Well, it's perfect because as you've said, you're just grounded in the character. There's no moralizing.

There's no attempt at a lesson at the end of the day. As he says, there is no Patrick Bateman. There is an idea of Patrick Bateman. And, yeah, again, the movie's not asking the question, why is one person a psychopaths? What the movie's really asking is, are we all psychopaths? Right. Why is he able to go unnoticed? Do we make it so easy for a psychopath to feel?

fit into our society. Like, we're rewarded for that type of behavior at the end of the day. So I think it's great. I think about, I think if you did it in a studio now, the first note would say, what's the trauma? What's the original sin? What's the thing that, you know? Just wait, Chris.

It's not just nowadays. But I agree that I think this is one of the smartest elements of this movie. They also had fun pulling comedy out of the novel. Karen and Turner loved that all of the finance guys really behaved like teenage girls. They were obsessed with their looks, their status, constantly competing with each other. I love the way that comes through in the movie. And that they all have the same job title, which is vice president, which is amazing, because it's the most meaningless job title ever in management.

It's just great. There's so many inside jokes in this. So many good jokes. As a filmmaker embarking on her first horror film, The Blood and Gore was less important to Heron than the tension and the awkward, uncomfortable moments that led up to the violence. Gwynnevere Turner said, quote, one of the things we talked about

early on when we were tackling the adaptation was, how do we deal with the violence? What's the line between telling the story and being exploitative and disgusting?

But we also don't want to be the lady filmmakers who shy away from the violence or hardcore nature of the original material. So we talked a lot about showing violence off screen and then just going for it

with one scene. Mary was like, let's just do one classic horror movie, scary scene, which I think clearly would be the one with the chainsaw.

Yeah, exactly, when he brings Christy to the apartment along with that other woman. To Paul Ellen's apartment, maybe. Yeah, exactly. In the end, and stark contrast to the book, which had upwards of 20 murders, the film only had four scenes of on-screen violence. And to that point above, like, a lot of it you don't see, which I didn't remember. Yeah, you don't see the axe hitting Paul Allen's head. A lot of violence is implied between him and the prostitute,

where she says, like, the last time I ended up in the hospital. But you don't see any of that. Yeah, it's very implied, even while being graphic. Yes. I would argue definitely more sexually graphic than it is violent. Oh, yeah. I mean, one of the funniest scenes is when he's on the phone watching porn in the background, reading the box of the porn VHS tape inside Lydia's ass.

Yeah, that's the one. It's so bad. So finally, having a script in context, that worked, Heron began the process of shopping the project around to studios, sometime around 1997, with many of them flat out rejecting it or giving the same script notes, like adding more scenes about Patrick Bateman's childhood, or to dive further into his psyche, wanting to understand what drove him to become a murderer, because, of course, he couldn't just be born this way. Right.

Mary was resolute that it didn't matter. Whether Bateman's mom was mean to him, he was a monster, pure and simple. and she really sticks to this all the way through. Another studio's primary issue was that in the scene where Patrick Bateman rejects Lewis Carruthers' bathroom advances. Played by Captain Fantastic Director Matt Ross. Yes, exactly. Also Silicon Valley star.

Yeah. Huli. They worried that it came across as homophobic, which, really? That was your problem with the whole movie. That's really interesting. I don't know that he is. I didn't read that scene as homophobia. I read that scene as hierarchical disgust.

Yeah, he was just repulsed by the person. He's repulsed by the idea that he would even think Bateman would be interested in him. That's what I think repulsed him. It could have been a man or a woman. It's a vanity thing. Exactly. Social status. 100%.

One studio, which I could not confirm which one, but offered to finance the film right away if Heron agreed to cast Edward Norton, who at the time had recently been nominated for an Academy Award, BFTA and Golden Globe, for his debut role in Primal Fear in 1997, which I love. Yeah, it's a super fun, amazingly hokey, serial killer movie, kind of. An incredibly 90s film, yes. Will you tell Ms. Van Gogh, I'm sorry. I love it.

Yeah, it's great. I know, and I love Everdorton, but again, nobody can touch Christian Bale. So while she thought he was a great actor, he didn't have the right look or physicality for the role. I think she's right. Her Bateman needed to resemble a classically handsome, perfect specimen of a man. So that's why she turned that down. It's not that he couldn't pull it off character-wise. But he is a more unusual-looking guy, for sure.

He's handsome. For the same reason, he could do primal fear. Mm-hmm. Christian Bale could not. Christian Bale would not be able to do that at that time. Yeah. So, yeah, you need a watch model. You need a perfume model in this movie to make it work.

You need a man who makes Justin Thoreau not look like the most handsome man in the room. That's right. And Josh Lucas. They all pale in comparison. Exactly. While Heron continued to meet with studios, she simultaneously, of course, continues the process of searching for her Patrick Bateman. Now, finding a bankable actor willing to take on the role of Bateman was difficult.

I think the easy assumption would be that few actors wanted to touch this IP because of the violence, but that maybe is not what deterred them. Roles like Patrick Bateman are seen as a specific type of career suicide that some people refer to as the Anthony Perkins effect. Would you like to take a try at explaining what that is? I'm guessing that the minute you play a serial killer or a character that creepy, the audience is unable to associate you with anything else, and they will always presume, oh, maybe he's the villain, or he has ulterior motives or something like that.

So every time you show up on screen, nobody can shed the persona that you've so effectively taken on. I'm sure Anthony Hopkins faced it after Silence of the Lambs potentially, you know, a little bit, where you like, but are you going to eat my liver? So, and Anthony Perkins, the name referred to in there, is, of course, the role of Psycho, Norman Bates, in Psycho. Father of Oz Perkins, who just directed Long Legs, so family business. Definitely. I think it's interesting about the Anthony Perkins effect that you got it exactly right. It's not the violence. It is the creep factor that seems to follow them. So another reason why casting Mary's version of Bateman was difficult

was that a lot of actors she met with just really didn't get the humor and a few apparently she suspected thought that Bateman was pretty cool. Well, that's what I was waiting for because you have to think that at least a few actors are like, this Andrew Tate guys got some pretty slick ideas. I do think she was being a fucking bitch. So, yeah.

you know, not name and names. And look, by the way, 15-year-old Chris was for 10 minutes, one of those people. This guy is pretty cool. Yeah. He can do a thousand crunches. Billy Kredup was at one point attached to play Patrick Bateman.

He would actually, I think he'd actually be good. I really like him, and he does a good job of straddling a gray morality for a character, I think, very well. Even on something like The Morning Show, obviously, you know. Yeah, he's great on that. And he's very handsome, obviously. Mm-hmm. A more classically handsome actor. That would have been interesting. Totally. I think he's a good

choice. And he was a rising star of the New York theater scene on Broadway, but he was really quite unknown in Hollywood at the time. So it's interesting that he was attached. Probably before almost famous, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. But like others before him, he does drop out in the end. And instead of turning down the role because it would damage his career, he was transparent with Mary and told her that he just didn't think he was able to get the character. You could call it saving himself from a bad job, and I think it was very classy of him. This all brings us to the one true American, British, psycho, Christian Bale. Yes, I'm aware. He was born in Wales. He was very young. Then they moved to England. We're not going to talk about it. He's from somewhere over the United Kingdom. At this point in the late

90s, British or maybe Welsh actor Christian Bale was in no way a household name. Bale got his start as a child actor in the 80s, performing on the West End in London, before his breakthrough role, in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun at the age of 13, which he's great in. And then was otherwise known for his roles in Disney's box office flop, Newsies, which I love. And wasn't he in... Little Women with Vinona Ryder. Yeah.

Yes. Heron was familiar with Bail's work and sent him the script while he was on set filming Velvet Gold Mine with Todd Haynes. Side note, Todd Haines told Haren that Bail was the best actor he'd ever worked with. Wow. Bail had heard about the project, but assumed it was about the same thing. psychology of a serial killer, which he was not interested in at all, and initially wrote it off without reading the script. It wasn't until Christine Vashon, a producer on Velvet Goldmine.

Christine Vashon, killer films, a really amazing producer, and she has a great book called Shooting to Kill that I highly recommend, especially if you want to work in the indie film world. Nice. So it wasn't until she encouraged Bale to give it a chance that he finally read through Heron and Turner's screenplay, and he loved the script, but if before agreeing to me, with Mary Heron he called her to make sure they were on the same page about one thing. He said he did not want to insult her just in case it wasn't her intention, but he thought the script was one of the funniest things he had ever read, to which Mary Harron replied, bingo. Great.

Christian promptly flies out to New York to read with Mary. They met at Mary's apartment with just a camera set up in her living room, and they had trouble getting through the audition takes because they were both laughing so much. Well, Bale hadn't fully nailed the American accent. please see newsies. He got the humor and had the same take on the role as Heron. He too was not interested in Bateman's backstory, and like Mary, saw him as an alien learning how to be a perfect man.

So finally, Mary Heron has her Patrick Bateman. But before Christian Bale flew back to the UK, she had one question for him. Have you ever been to the gym? And he's like, no, I'm British. Pretty thin at this point. formless. Yes, very. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, very handsome, but very sort of willowy. Yeah. He said he'd never really set foot in a gym, but he immediately began working out every day, kicking off his obsessive transformation into Patrick Bateman, changing his physicality within a matter of months, which, of course, has since become a trademark of his acting process. So in addition to becoming unbelievably ripped for this in a short amount of time.

Can I brief interlude on this? Everyone's like, I want to look like Brad Pitt and Fight Club. No, it's this. I want to look like Christian Bailey. an American Psycho. He looks amazing. He looks... Look, when he's looking at himself in the mirror during the sex scenes, I'm like, you're not...

I get it. Not looking at the most attractive person in the room. He's ridiculously... But also still proportional and looks good in a suit. You know, it's really... He looks like a statue of a Greek god in this movie. He really does. Well, it's the 90s.

So actors aren't injecting themselves with... steroids. That's true. Just Justin Thoreau apparently, or his character. That's right. He does reference it. Yeah. So in addition to becoming unbelievably ripped, as we said, Bale also had dental work done. Them teeth are fake. His reasoning for capping his teeth was that Baitman's physicality was critical to the character. He's obviously incredibly superficial and narcissistic. And when Bale looked at himself in the mirror, his real teeth, his real beautiful United Kingdom teeth did not fit the character. That UK dental program didn't quite get him there. He didn't want to, quote, ruin the film.

Yeah. His teeth. However, he did keep a molding of his old teeth on his shelf. Oh, interesting. So he reportedly used his own agents as inspiration for Patrick Bateman, but he also turned to interviews with a very famous actor at the time. Chris, do you know who it was? Is the actor not still famous?

They are still famous. I mean, I would guess Tom Cruise. Bingo. Yeah. He has a Tom Cruise in the beginning of Rain Man kind of energy in some of the scenes, you know, that intense smile, the toothy grin. So, Bale described Cruz as, quote, intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes. And if you go back, listeners, I do recommend this, look at some 90s interviews of Tom Cruise. There's one specifically with Rosie O'Donnell.

It's Patrick Bateman to a T. When you see it, you can't unsee it. There's also another interview where he's talking to David Letterman about how he's flying a plane and they ended up realizing they could get to a higher altitude if they cut the guy in the back's oxygen supply off to the point where this passenger in their little prop plane was unconscious for part of the flight. and David Letterman is like, you almost killed this person. And Tom Cruise is laughing hysterically.

You don't know what happened when you turned his oxygen off? He was very quiet. He fell asleep. He slept the whole way. Wow. But, you know, he's the kind of guy you wanted to have him sleep the whole way. But honestly, looking at it from another direction, isn't that attempted manslaughter? He said my, jeez, my head.

It is bizarre. But anyway, go look at it. Christian was so committed to his preparation that during a dinner with Mary Hare and Guinevere Turner and Brady Sinellis, he showed up completely in character, the suit, the hair, the accent, everything. Keep in mind, he had never met Brett Eastonelis before. Amazing.

At first, Ellis found it amusing, but as dinner went on and Christian Bale didn't drop it, he began to find it a bit unnerving being face to face with the monster he created and eventually asked him to please stop. Either way, he understood what Heron saw in him and approved of the casting. Bale had also received phone calls from friends urging him not to take the role because it was career of suicide, but apparently that made him want to do it even more. It wasn't going to do swing kids too, so. It's time to do American Psycho.

That's right. So now we're making this thing, right? No. No, of course not. Of course not. Around the same time that Bale became attached in 1998, Lionsgate agreed to finance the film. Now, they had just formed the year before around 1997, making American Psycho one of their earliest projects. They seemed to initially agree to finance it for around $10 million, but it sounds like it landed somewhere around a budget between six or $6 or $10 million.

But it sounds like it landed somewhere around a budget between six or $6 or $1. $7 million. At this point, Mary Harron has continued to round out her cast with Willem Defoe and Chloe Sevenie attached, and I believe Jared Leto as well. He's very fun in this, too. He's great. He's great. Then Mary Heron receives a call from one of the producers with some exciting news.

Lionsgate wants this to be a big hit. Oh, so who do they want to put in the movie? There you go. So they've got to get the biggest star possible on board to play Patrick Bates. Who do you think they would like? Chris? DiCaprio? Yes. Yo, really?

Yes. Because he was 98, so Titanic would have been the year before. That's right. That's right. I mean, he does it in Wolf of Wall Street later, but it's so different, you know? Yeah. And he was too young. He's so young looking.

He's probably what, five years, four years younger than Bale, maybe five, but he looks at least 10 or 15 years younger. I mean, one of the first. One of the things I found weird in Titanic was Kate Winslet looks like his babysitter for a lot of the movie. I know, and she's younger than he is. I know. He's just got such a boy face. She does like, I'm going to watch you on, I'm going to watch you on this shit, little boy. So Lionsgate publicly announces at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival that Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star as Patrick Bateman and American Psycho. Do DiCaprio Bale or Heron know about this?

She is not on board. Uh-huh. Christian Bale, I don't know exactly when he was notified. This was a mess, for sure. Wow. Leo obviously had garnered a massive following after the blockbuster success of Titanic, as you pointed out, and he quickly became, like, maybe the most famous actor of his generation at that point. Absolutely.

So Lionsgate offered him $20 million for the role of Bateman and told Heron that even with Leo a the actual film's budget would remain at $6 million. I thought they were going to say, we're giving him $20, but the total budget is 19. Like, find a way to save some money. That's crazy. Wow. She got $6 million for everything.

This is what they're proposing, and he would get $20 million. So she is opposed to this from the get-go. Not only would it be detrimental to the film, but also detrimental to his career, considering his fan base largely consisted of young teenage girls. If you think about it for two seconds, it doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense.

It makes less than no sense. It's a horrible idea. I think it really could have ruined his career. I agree. I also don't think the film would have done particularly well because after the first weekend, everyone would have said, don't see this movie. Absolutely.

And also, he was not right for the role that Mary had written. To your point, he read way too young, and his look is pretty unique. Again, he's not like, you know, one of the running jokes throughout this is that all of the Wall Street men look alike and can't tell each other apart. Exactly. His own lawyer does not know who he is at the end of the movie. Which Christian male, even though he is beautiful in a like Greek god sort of way, does look like Jared Leto and they are able to make him fit in with the rest of them. It also would have thrown the actor-director power dynamic completely out of whack.

Exactly. She would have had no control. No. And if he didn't understand the tone, whereas Bail obviously does understand the tone, and there was a creative disagreement, he would have gotten his way. It just wouldn't have worked. She knew that. She absolutely knew that she would lose complete control of the film if this happened. So, Pressman understood her disappointment, but he urged her to meet with DeCaprio and the executive to discuss the role. But she refused and stood by her decision that Christian Bale was the only viable option for the part.

Which is probably smart for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is. I'm sure Leonardo DiCaprio is an extremely charming person. Right, you could be swayed. He may have been able to win her over in the room, and she may have been able to convince herself, maybe it could be okay. No, she just knew. Yeah, can't get that close. I think what's really impressive about her over the course of this is that she really doesn't bend. It's not that she's not a good collaborator.

I think she is very much. but when there's something she feels strongly about creatively, she's not backing down on it. Yeah. And then Lionsgate fired Mary Heron from the project. Whoa. Plot twist. So initially,

she thought that Pressman was trying to get her to change her mind about the casting by meeting with DiCaprio in person. But in hindsight, it does seem like Pressman was maybe trying to help her save her job. Yeah, like you need to get on board or they're going to put you out to see. Exactly. because apparently DiCaprio had a short list of surprise, surprise,

all male prestige directors that he wanted to work with on the film. Prestige Roll 1. That's what was at the top of the list. James Cameron, Stephen Spielberg. It's actually Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick were at the top of the list. Scorsese makes a lot of sense. And Kubrick does too. But Kubrick, meanwhile, is shooting for his 197th day on eyes wide shut with Tom Cruise at the same time.

He's busy with the inspiration. Patrick Bateman. Exactly. They were shooting at this very moment. Heron addresses this in a later interview with Vulture saying, quote, this project had been around for years and I felt like I'd brought this back from the dead. I wrote a script that everybody's interested in.

You can't get rid of me. But of course they could. I almost grew up in that moment because I had no idea what money and power can do. I don't think you can understand that until you've got something that people think is really valuable and there's real money and real celebrity at stake. I was expendable. And that's a lesson I internal. When there's money at stake, you mean nothing.

It brings us back to that when we spoke with Zach Braff on Garden State, and you said the only thing that you can have of value is control over a piece of desirable property. Yes. And you have to make sure that you control it from a legal perspective because otherwise, people will take it from you. Absolutely. As if there wasn't enough drama surrounding the film, reports start to come out spinning a story that Heron had left because she didn't want to make a big budget. film, which would have been damaging to her career, obviously was not true. Luckily, she was savvy enough to get ahead of that. She hires a publicist and makes it clear that she was fired from the project, but she's very careful not to speak disparagingly about the studio just in case they ever

want to come back to her, because as we know, they will. It's very smart. So sometime around June of 1998, it was reported that Oliver Stone was in talks to direct. He's back. Stone had also attempted to do a serial killer movie with 1994's natural-born killers, which is kind of a mess, but it's also pretty fun. So maybe he wants to return to that genre. Yeah, and of course it's a hybrid with the film he worked on with Pressman before when he directed Wall Street. So pretty quickly, there were disagreements over the script.

That was where there were a lot of quibbles. Then, as legend has it, I told you to remember her, Gloria Steinem invites Leonardo DiCaprio to a baseball game and talks him out of doing the film, citing DeCaprio's young fan base and the impact it would have on young women and girls going to see the film and watching him inflict such horrific scenes of violence on women. Now, we're going to go on a little bit of a journey here. I want to point out that Gloria Steinem would go on. No, no, it's me, Chris. I did this. I was proud of knowing this. I knew this. Fine, say it. You say it, but know that I'm. You say it, but know that I'm. I knew it.

Fine. Gloria Steinem would go on to marry Christian Bale's dad in 2000. Boom. Mike dropped. So, Chris was Gloria Steinem working a long con? Let's explore. Actually, there's nothing more to explore. I was going to say, I think that's it.

I think that's the whole thing. That's as deep as it goes. Chris, I spent so much time trying to figure out the timeline of when she started dating David Bale to see if maybe this was possible. I am sad to report that I don't think the timing adds up. I think she just really hated American Psycho. I think she did too. Yeah.

Apparently they met in October of 1999, but I really like to think that Gloria took one for the team and sat through a baseball game with Leonardo DiCaprio to sabotage an Oliver Stone American Psycho. So let me have that. So Leo quickly leaves the project to do The Beach with Danny Boyle. And following his departure, Oliver Stone, walks as well, thank you, Gloria, leaving Pressman and lines. gate in an all too familiar predicament. All this while, though, Christian Bale, he's never stopped preparing for the role. No one told him that he wasn't doing it. No, no, that's not true.

They actually told him repeatedly that he did not have the job. By the way, you're not in this movie, and he's like, I'm going to go stick a kitten in an ATM, and I'll call you tomorrow. That's literally what this was, Chris. His friends and Mary Haren herself told him, it is over, and you need to move on multiple times. He never loses hope and never see. stops. And he also turned down other projects in case they came back to him. Good for him.

Lionsgate immediately comes right back to Mary Heron and brings her back on the project, but they still say no to Christian Bale, citing that she needs to cast an actor with more box office prowess. So she's like, fine. I will appease the studio and producers, and she has meetings with actors on their short list, which included Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ewan McGregor, and he's back, Edward Norris. And Damon, talented Mr. Ripley, that I can kind of see. You and McGregor, I could see. You and McGregor, sure.

Not as much from a physical perspective. I also think he's, in my mind, he's a little closer to Norton. I think Affleck visually fits the role actually pretty well. Yes, totally. So it's obviously an interesting list. Well, Bail does get wind of these meetings, and he fears that Mary is betraying him. When he called her, just to have a little chat about it, she told him to be patient because she has a plan. In meeting with these actors, Mary, obviously, is actually the one playing the Long Con, knowing that they will all say no to the part.

Christian Bale also even called Ewenger, one of his co-stars from Velvet Gold Mine and told him to turn it down. One wonders what that phone call was like, which E. McGregor does. You and McGregor's like, no problem, buddy. This is a huge gamble on Mary's part. She's even admitted that had any of them said yes, she would have been screwed, and she was particularly worried about Edward Norton agreeing to do it. That makes sense. I think he is the most likely to say yes to something like this,

especially given primal fear. And then he said, yes, I'm guessing right around this time to American History X. Which is an amazing movie, and he is amazing in. And we'll cover because it was a bit of a shit show behind the scenes as well. With no other options, Lionsgate finally agrees to Christian, Bail with two caveats. One, his salary would be slashed, and the remaining cast had to be name actors with box office draw.

So with Defoe, Sevenier and Jared Leto already attached, Bail and Heron initially approached one of Bail's former co-stars from Little Women to play his girlfriend Evelyn. Winona Ryder? Yes. She turned down the offer. I couldn't find anywhere why, but that was a really busy year for her with Girl Interrupted. So who knows, it may have been a scheduling thing. Reese Witherspoon was eventually cast in the role, and her star is for sure on the rise at this point, coming off of Fear, Pleasantville, and she had recently wrapped both Alexander Payne's election and cruel intentions, but both of those movies had not been released yet.

Can I throw it out to the universe? I think Reese Witherspoon is an extremely interesting actress, and I would love for her to get back to weird late 90s Witherspoon projects. Like, she is so good in election. I love election. She's so good in election. She's great in this. Yes, she's very funny. She has a very good sense of humor and she can do weird, total movies. So I'm just throwing it out there, Reese. I know you have Hello Sunshine, but throw us like a weird one every now and again.

You're amazing. I would love a weird one. Me too. Okay. It's finally happening. Production is set to begin in Toronto in the winter of 1999, but we can't have nice things even in Canada. Of course not. While Heron and crew members were on the way to do a tech scout at their primary shooting location, Bateman's corporate office, they received a call that the location had pulled out.

That same morning, an article appeared in the Toronto Sun with the headline, movie version of Bernardo Bible to be filmed in Toronto. So the Bernardo, that article is referring to, is infamous Canadian rapist and serial killer Paul Bernardo. A copy of American Psycho was found next to or near Bernardo's bed after he was arrested. Now, the Sun's article falsely suggested that the book inspired him and was used as a blueprint to carry out his crimes. But that doesn't make sense at all since Bernardo and his partner in crime, Carla Hamulka, had begun terrorizing the women of Ontario at least four years before American Psycho was ever published. Also, he's Canadian. Patrick Bateman would have hated him. That's so true.

Turns out the paper had received a fax sent by Canadians concerned about violence and entertainment, or Sea Cave, who were worried that the movie would encourage more serial killers. I think it'll just encourage more douchey young men, personally. It's going to, maybe more at-home tanning beds. Yeah. Although several other Canadian news outlets, including The Sun, defended the production, citing freedom of speech, the damage had been done with many Canadians conflating American Psycho as the Paul Bernardo film,

even though they'd not related at all. Right. Because of this, they were unable to secure another corporate location, and Lionsgate had to give production an additional $100,000 to build a set on a soundstage instead. They also had to fight to keep other secured locations, restaurants and nightclubs from pulling out as well. Production then took extra measures

and took the film's name off of their permits and call sheets and hired extra security for the first week of shooting. So there is a rumor that people actively protested the film, but as far as we can tell, no protests actually took place on or near the set. Mary Heron is still questioned about this. to this day, despite it probably not being true, and jokes that she thinks Seekave is maybe

one woman with a fax machine, which I think is probably right. But the controversy did cause some Canadian crew members to leave the project. But it's not just Canada's finest office buildings. Several brands mentioned in the novel and script pulled out as well or added additional stipulations. Rolex watches are referenced upwards of 26 times in the original book. So it was only fitting that Bateman and the other Wall Street guys would wear them in the film. Now, while Rolex did agree to have their watches used in the film, they did not want their brand mentioned.

So the famous line, Patrick says, while in bed with the sex workers, don't touch the Rolex, had to be changed to don't touch the watch. One of my favorites. Com de Garsohn would not allow their Weekender bag to be used in the scene where Bateman drags Paul Allen's newly corpse. I love your vacation bag. Yes, of course. It was changed to Jean-Paul Gautier, who had no problem with it. Yeah. I said, yes, it will hold a body.

It's fine. He's fine. Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren pulled out as well, refusing to be featured in the film. And while Sir Rudy allowed Bateman to wear their clothes, they stipulated that they not be worn in any of the murder scenes. Another important aspect to Bateman's world is, of course, the music he listens to. Yeah. One of the conventions used in the film is when he's talking about music, he's likely about to murder or harm someone. Mm-hmm.

Huey Lewis and Phil Collins are two musicians that did allow their songs to be used in the film and talked about, of course, in great detail by Bateman, but you'll notice that Whitney Houston's song, which she also talks about, the greatest love of all, is not in fact Whitney Houston, but an instrumental version. And that is because she did not want her music in this. So principal photography finally begins on February 28th of 1999, and I'm happy to say that despite the development hell, onset production is pretty smooth. This is, of course, mostly due to Mary Heron, though it was not without some hiccups.

There was a bit of tension with the DP. Oh, I'm going to get this wrong. Andre Secula, who was best known for his work with Quentin Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. And it sounds like he was a bit of a gruff figure and that he and Aaron would often be at odds of over how shots were set up. He would opt for setups that he thought looked cool, but Heron felt they didn't serve the story in the way that she needed them to. She was really keenly aware of what was needed for the edit to work and was meticulous about every element of production, including down to what Babin is watching on TV,

as you mentioned, that lovely porn and or the Texas Chainsaw Masker. Right, exactly. She also did shoot additional more graphic footage that she knew wouldn't be used due to the ratings board. Lionsgate didn't really love this, but otherwise they did seem to keep their hands off during production. This is really cool.

She shot multiple takes of Willem DeFoeuvre. scenes as Detective Kimball. She would have him do every scene three different ways, one where he was suspicious of Bateman, one where he knew Bateman was guilty, and a third where he didn't suspect Bateman at all. The takes were then spliced together to keep the audience and Bateman on their toes, which I really love. And if you know that when you're watching it, I think you can tell which take is which, which is fun. Yeah, that's very fun in retrospect. I love that when he pulls out his calendar, it's the equivalent of a child holding up a coloring book attempting to defend themselves. It's so funny. It's amazing. Speaking of multiple takes,

Heron had Christian Bale do upwards of 15 takes of his admission scene when he calls the lawyer. Of course, he's getting more and more frantic and desperate, and it was getting better and better. One of the last takes is what made it into the film. She also filmed the rehearsal of the famous Paul Allen murder. So Jared Leto's reaction that you see when he turns around is his real reaction to being charged at by axe-wielding Christian Bale during the rehearsal. Amazing. It's really, he does look very surprised. Any filmmaker who deals with gore knows how time-consuming resetting can be after a take with blood spatter.

During Paul Allen's murder scene, we see the camera angled up at Bateman as Bateman hacks him to death. And the way that they did this was that crew members were splattering blood off camera on DeBale's face with each swing of the axe. And the way that it ends up with the blood really just covering half of his face was a total accident. Oh, really? Yes. I assumed it was planned because it feels so deliberate. No, it was an accident, but obviously it's perfect because it sort of shows the Jekyll and Hyde. Heron and Bail, unsurprisingly, had amazing on-set collaboration.

A lot of iconic moments in the film were unscripted, such as Christian Bale looking at himself and flexing in the mirror during the three-way scene. And also the moonwalk in the Paul Allen murder scene, which apparently Brad Easton Ellis hated when he first saw. He later appreciated it. Yeah, how do you hate that? It's one of the best parts of the movie. I don't know.

Maybe you think it's too showboaty, like before he's doing it, I don't know. I like it. I love it. Bail and Heron also came up with the idea that during the lunch scene between Bateman and the detective, he would gradually begin to copy Willem Defoe's behavior. But Christian Bale earned himself an onset reputation with the cast. While many actors can cry on cue,

it turns out that Christian Bale can sweat on cue. Really? During the business card scene in the boardroom, the other actors noticed that he would begin to sweat in the exact same place every take and referred to him as robo actor. Bale more or less stayed in character while on set primarily to maintain his American accent

and didn't socialize with other actors. His reasoning being that if he knew his castmates on a more personal level, he would have a difficult time getting through takes without laughing. Chloe Sevene-Ye did have a bit of a hard time with this. She never really worked with an actor that stayed in character the way that Christian Bale did.

But others like Matt Ross, who we mentioned plays Lewis Carruthers, found his work ethic to be really admirable. years later when Josh Lucas was doing Ford versus Ferrari with Bail, Lucas told him that the other actors on the American Psycho set would talk about him behind his back, saying that they thought, quote, he was a terrible actor and couldn't understand why Heron had fought so hard for him.

It wasn't until he saw the film that he realized what he was doing and how brilliant Christian Bale's performance was. And then Christian Bale said, fuck sake, man, you're amateur. Just kidding. He loved it and told Mary Heron, who also thought it was very funny. and neither of them had any idea while they were filming.

Well, it is true that everybody else is existing in one film, and then he is existing in his own personal hell film at the same time. Like, everything he has to do, performance-wise, is so outlandish to actually draw attention to the fact that nobody else is noticing it. Like, that's the whole tension of the film, is he is increasingly erratic in all of his interactions, and nobody ever notices. Yes, exactly.

You mentioned there was another woman in the sort of one true horror scene later on, which is his sort of friend, Elizabeth. That is co-screenwriter Gwynnevere Turner. What? Yes. She's great. She is great. She's really good. Well, she's also an actress.

Wow. She's really good in that scene. She's great. She's very funny. Yeah. She commended them for being very professional and considerate during their scenes together, particularly in their intimate bedroom scene. One of the funniest parts of that scene is that, I forget the actresses' name, Christy, the other sex worker.

How just freaking bored she is during a lot of those scenes. It's so funny until it gets horrifying, obviously. That actually was probably the scene that it took the longest to shoot. It took nearly three days. They had to do multiple takes, resetting the blood, oozing through the sheets, as Bateman is killing Elizabeth. Also, Heron had to fight to keep the chainsaw impaling Christy at the bottom of the staircase, because others pointed out, realistically, it wouldn't happen that way, but she assured them it did not matter and that it would look great in the end,

which she's right about. We also mentioned it earlier. Bateman, of course, is at one point watching the original Texas chainsaw massacre and the way that Heron shot this sequence is a direct callback to this film, including the scene that they show where a leather face is sort of dancing with the chainsaw, and then you see again with Christian Bale. Also, interesting to point out here that it is not the woman who is scantily clad in this sequence. is Christian Bale, who is completely naked, except for tennis shoes and a chainsaw.

Principal photography wrapped sometime around April of 1999. So Lionsgate was pretty hands-off during production, but they initially would not give Mary Hare and additional funds for the amazing title sequence that we see at the opening of the movie, where initially it looks like blood is splattering on sort of like a bright white background, but then you start to see that it's actually these very fancy gourmet food dishes coming out. I think it's great. Post-production also goes pretty smoothly.

Even though Heron didn't have final cut, it seems like no one really messed with her vision too much. American Psycho premiered at Sundance on January 21st, 2000, and the response was cold to say the least. Haran Bail Turner and their editor were having a great time laughing through the whole movie, but the rest of the audience was completely silent because the film mixed genres in such a way

that many people didn't understand that it was okay to laugh. Someone from the American Psycho Camp even overheard someone talking about it saying something along the lines of American Psycho, American Succo. Nice. And that joke killed. I think especially at this point in time, Sundance was so the home of the gritty indie drama as opposed to any sort of comedy. I also wonder, so this would have been... Well, no, there were comedies coming through Sundance, but I think they looked very different. Yeah, you're right. I'm looking at some of the winners from Sundance 2000, Girl Fight, Karen Kusama,

you can count on me, Kenneth Lonergan. There definitely are some indie comedies, committed, the Tao of Steve, but definitely nothing at the satirical level of American Psycho. Right. I also wonder this is what, a year and less than a year after Columbine. Yes. And so I wonder if there was a little bit of a shock factor at, like, like, are we going to laugh our way through this young man, you know, murdering people and glorifying consumerism, et cetera, you know.

Definitely possible. Nine months after this shooting rock darnation. So who knows. Yeah, that's a good point. Gwynnevere Turner allegedly was supposed to have lunch with her friend, Sundance darling, Kevin Smith, who was also at the festival. And he saw the premiere, but he canceled at the last minute saying he was sick. He told her years later that he disliked the film so much that he couldn't face her.

And it wasn't until he watched it again years later that he realized how brilliant it was. Well, good for you, Kevin, for coming around. He came around. Christian Bale, on the other hand, had no idea that it hadn't been received well at the premiere. He was really happy with what they made and was just having a great time watching it with the crew. After the Sundance premiere, the film was sent to the MPA ratings board and given an NC-17 rating. For all the violence and feeding of cats to ATMs, right? Wrong.

It had nothing to do with the violence in the film. They took issue with one scene in particular. The threesome between Bateman and the two sex workers. By the way, the threesome, not erotic or sexy in any way. The women are very bored. It is transactional. And Bateman is, of course, as Chris has pointed out, looking at himself in the mirror.

Yeah. It's very funny. Yes, it shows sex, but it doesn't show it in a sexy way. Like, honestly, the most graphic part is when he says, when he's like, turns so she can see your ass. He says, don't look at it. Look at it. Yeah, that's the most, it's a line.

It's not even a visual act. I just love the eye roll as the sex worker is like, fine. Yeah. So Mary agreed to remove seconds of the scene here and there, and then the film does receive its R rating. Got it. Now, for the release, Lionsgate made some creative choices with their advertising, Chris. one option was people could sign up for email sent to them by Patrick Bateman, whose address was Bateman at Am Psycho 2000.com,

which were approved by Ellis, but not written by him. Reading through them, they sort of come across as fan fiction rather than really related to the film. Christian Bale was pretty opposed to the campaign, concerned that people would think it was him writing the emails, and that audiences didn't need the added content to get the satire of the film. They also spent around $50,000 to create their own online stock exchange game called Make a Killing with American Psycho, where fans could invest with faux Hollywood money. The premise was that they would get real cash back for every American Psycho share they bought if the film made $20 million, but it did not seem to make much of a difference to the box office draw. Listeners, if anyone ever played this, please tell us.

Please, please reach out. Or if you received an email from Patrick Bateman. I applaud the marketing department for trying something different. What's ironic is that they do two things that are never done in the movie. They do a stockbroker game. He never does any work in the entire movie. Sure doesn't. And then sending an email as his killer persona,

I guess technically he tries to tell his attorney at the end and it doesn't even come through. And it's via phone. So, anywho. Yeah, it was set in the 80s. They didn't have email. That's my point. Exactly.

Anyway, good try, guys. So because American Psycho just can't seem to stay away from controversy, there was also drama with the release of the soundtrack. Also, fun fact, John Kale, who did the version of Hallelujah that appeared in Shrek, which we discussed in the last episode, did the score for this movie.

I saw his name in the credits, and I wondered if it was the same John Kale. It was the same. So it seems like the record label, Koch Records, didn't notify some if any of the musicians whose songs were used in the film that they would be releasing a soundtrack.

No, no. They told them that they were in the film. They just didn't explain that they were releasing them on a soundtrack. They're just like, oh, by the way you're in this movie. No, no, no. They didn't explain this part. So when Huey Lewis and his manager caught wind of it, they refused to let hip to be square be included on the soundtrack,

which, as we mentioned, of course, does play during Paul Allen's murder. And why? Because you want them to buy your record, not a soundtrack where you only get a tiny, tiny fraction of the proceeds. That's exactly right. There's definitely people who would say that, oh, it was because Huey Lewis and his management were opposed to the violence in the film. That is not true at all. He hadn't seen the film and he also had agreed for the song to be used in the film and he was a fan of the book and knew exactly what happened in the scene. To your point, the real reason is entirely contractual. He didn't know about the soundtrack, didn't feel right for

that one song to be going out and for people to be able to buy the album, without the rest of his songs on it. So he did politely decline. And because of this, they had to pull 100,000 copies of the soundtrack right before it was supposed to be released ahead of the film's premiere. Oh. Because of the rumor that spread about Lewis that he had opposed it, he ended up boycotting the film for a few years.

But he mentions that he did watch the Paul Allen scene eventually, and he thought it was great. It's hip to be square. The soundtrack was eventually released on April 4th, 2000. Sons, Hip to Be Square. American Psycho is released in theaters in the U.S. and Canada on April 14, 2000, and pretty much no one thought it was funny. There is a particularly scathing L.A. Times review that opens with this zinger,

quote, suppose, just suppose. We take American Psycho at its word and agree that this little number is, in the words of director and co-writer Mary Heron, a comedy, a satire on the late 80s. The question becomes A, how sharp and penetrating a satire is it, And B, are the pungency of its barbs worth what must be endured to receive them? The answers, not vary and definitely not. Shut up, L.A. Times. Yeah, come on.

Luckily, a positive New York Times review does save them, calling it a lean and mean horror comedy classic, and Roger Ebert does come around to reverse his initial take on the film after Sundance. This is not entirely an uncommon reaction when a film, film mixes genres, but I do think that we are more primed now to understand a movie like this than the audiences were in 2000. Sure. And the film, of course, was written off in the same way that the book had been with some

of its most vocal critics being people that never saw it. And Herod constantly had to field questions about whether she was concerned. It would inspire people to recreate the violence in the film. One critique that Heron does acknowledge as an opportunity for improvement is potentially how open-ended the last sequences. We are left to guess if Patrick Bateman really did all of those things, or if some of it was in his head, as moments obviously become more and more surreal towards the end,

things like an ATM saying, feed me a stray cat, or the look on his face when the police cars blow up. Chris, what do you think about the ending? I assume he did some of the things in the movie. So when I first saw the movie, because I remembered from high school. The first time I saw the movie,

I thought he didn't do anything. I thought that's what the reveal was. I think I thought that, too. She sees his doodles, and the connection is, oh, it's fantasies at the end of the day. And he goes to Palin's apartment, et cetera. The reason I think it's both this time around,

I think that Heron uses a very specific camera technique when he makes admissions early in the movie. So, for example, but when he says I'm in murders and executions, when he says, I want to kill you, you fucking bitch at the bar. Right, they don't hear him.

Not only do they not hear him, they're in tighter coverage than they are for any of the other parts of the scene. So whenever he makes an admission, it almost feels as if he is saying it in an alternate reality in his head. And then the scene continues, and we're not hearing what the other person heard,

but they actually heard the normal thing. Yeah. Regardless of whether or not they did, I, for just as my take, watching it? It feels like he did murder the homeless man. I think he did in the beginning. I think he did abuse the sex workers. I think he murdered that one maybe only because that scene, they leave his perspective when they follow her as she goes around the apartment, right? And she opens that one door and it says like the yuppie's in blood on the wall. I'm not saying all that

is necessarily real, but it's interesting that she leaves Bateman's POV in that scene, which she hadn't done in any of the other murders. Obviously, Paul Allen, it feels like they may be killed or maybe didn't, because part of the joke is that nobody knows who anybody else is in this world. So it's possible. He is missing. So it is possible. But they do, the lawyer at the end mentions we saw Paul Allen in London,

but then again, maybe you didn't because no one knows who anyone is. And he says 10 days ago, and when they're doing the calendar sequence with Willem Defoe, nobody knows where they are at any point in time or who they're with. Right. Anyway, so I just took it as we can't know which of the crimes he committed. I think the broader point is he will never be punished for this behavior. Yes, and it can be as extreme as he wants it to be. Exactly.

And his, the cruel joke is at the beginning, he says, I just want to fit in. Mm-hmm. And he fits in perfectly. Like, that's kind of the joke at the end of the movie, as I've interpreted it. Yeah, he fits in too well. Exactly. Well, one person who is not really sure about how the ending in the movie is handled is Brett Easton Ellis. In a quote from an interview with film school rejects in 2013, he said,

American Psycho, I also don't think really works as a film. The movie is fine, but I think that the book is unadaptable because it's about consciousness, and you can't really shoot that sensibility. Also, you have to make a decision whether Patrick Bateman kills people or doesn't. Regardless of how Mary Heron wants to shoot that ending, we've already seen him kill people. It doesn't matter if he has some crisis of memory at the end. I think, to your point, I think the ending works. I like that it's ambiguous.

I think, in fact, you don't actually have to choose whether he has killed people. And I think that's kind of the point that she was getting at with the ending. And to your point, Chris, his punishment is, of course, that no one cares enough to do anything about any of it, whether it is really happening and he is blowing up cars and beating cats to ATMs or not. So the box office, the domestic, was around $15 million. Bummer for anyone who bought those fake American Psycho shares. International was around $19 million with a worldwide box office total of about $34 million on a budget of $6 or $7 million. So financially pretty good. I was going to say, that's solid.

That is a great return. Yeah. Now, despite its initial poor reviews when the film was released, American Psycho, of course, rose to cult classic status. and is now considered one of the greatest horror films of all time, in addition to being one of the most influential films in feminist cinema. So where are they now? Mary Heron and Gwynnevere Turner continued to work together as a writing team after American Psycho with, of course, The Notorious Betty Page in 2005, and Charlie says in 2018,

Mary's gone on to direct a handful of other independent features in addition to television, such as limited series adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Aalius Grace. While none of her other films have been as prominent as American Psycho, it doesn't really seem to bother her. I think she wants to make films on her own terms, especially when it comes to creative decisions like casting. It's also worth noting. Plot twist that Mary Heron directed her first feature at 42,

her second, at 45, and gave birth to her two children during the process of making American Psycho. She became pregnant with her first child after agreeing to write the screenplay and was nine months pregnant with her second child when the film premiered in April of 2000. Oh my God.

Yep. My wife gave birth to our child while I was in post-production on a movie. Yeah, how was that? It was horribly hard, and I didn't do anything. So I cannot imagine. God bless Mary Heron for sticking it out on both fronts. Pretty amazing. In the decade after American Psycho was released,

Christian Bale also cemented his place as one of the greatest actors of this generation and has become known for his extreme approach to physical preparation for his roles. Of course, he goes on to win an Academy Award for his role in the fighter and famously starred as Batman. Batman. A role I really don't think he would have gotten without American Psycho. I agree. I think he would have had to prove that he could be physically imposing in the way that Batman needed to be in Nolan's version. And he does still credit her in interviews to this day for what she did for him.

and his career. Yeah. And it's one of those few examples where it really is hard to think of anybody else that fit this particular mold in the way that he did. Brett Easton Ellis, I'm not going to go into too much detail on his public persona and the disparaging things he's said about so many people.

But to say the least, he has remained a controversial and divisive figure in and outside of his literary work. And as we mentioned, he does also have an ever-shifting opinion on the film. Ed Pressman, who fought so hard for the adaptation of American Psycho sadly passed away in 2023. He and Mary did work again together before his passing on Dolly Land, which Heron directed in 2022.

As you might already know, Chris, in 2002, Lionsgate released the straight to video. Chef's Kiss American Psycho 2, starring Milakunis, which we don't need to go into any detail on, but it has absolutely zero similarities to the original film. And the primary connection is Milakunis, killing Patrick Bateman when she was a child. It has an 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If you would like kind of the female American Psycho in B-movie form, I recommend American Mary, if you haven't seen it,

directed by the Soska Sisters or the Soska Sisters, it's a Canadian body horror movie. It's a little different. It has to deal with extreme body modification, where you like, Tetsuo the Iron Man, et cetera, You insert metal into your body or do surgery to change yourself, et cetera. Anyway, it's a body horror movie. It's very fun.

It feels like a cousin to this film in some ways. Nice. Well, that really wraps up our coverage of American Psycho. I had no idea. I knew basically nothing about the development of this movie. That was amazing. Yeah, it's pretty wild. I think it's time to find out what went right.

I'm just going to keep it simple. Christian Bale. he's so good in this movie. I think he's a wonderful actor and the voice, the vulnerability. One of the things I really love about this movie is that it, and I want to think of the right way to say this, there is absolutely, I think masculinity is important. There's a place for masculinity in our lives.

Young boys need good, masculine role models in their lives, young girls too. I think men and women need both masculinity and femininity and in different amounts to navigate this world. And what I like about this movie is it's such a good send-up of a very specific form of corporatism, because it's not just a broad send-up of capitalism, which is lazy.

It's a send-up of the absolutely ineffective nature of corporate Wall Street culture at this time and bloat. And also the vapid quality of kind of liberal doublespeak, which is really fun to watch. in this movie, the way that it takes shots at virtue signaling at these probably self-described liberal elitists in so many ways who are strip mining this economic system for their own gain and do not give a shit about anybody else. So anyway, I think what I appreciate about the movie is that it picks its targets carefully and it's kind of sniping them off in a row as opposed

to the shotgun blast criticisms we see broadly of just like, yes, capitalism's bad, masculinity's bad, et cetera, et cetera. Well, those are very big, broad statements. And what I like about American Psycho is that it actually takes the time to construct a really specific criticism. And Christian Bales, the, like, perfect Trojan horse to deliver that message. Well, I think you are leading perfectly into my What Went Right, which I think is the screenplay. I think Mary Heron and Guinevere Turner did something really special here, obviously working with source material from Breddy's and Ellis, a book that I have not read, I would like to read. But yeah, I think the specificity of this screenplay is excellent. They are able to use the sort of stream of consciousness

sparingly, but effectively, which I think is how most of the book is written. Like, it's not sequential. He spends a lot of time talking about shampoo, which I think drove some people nuts. And they just knew exactly what to pull from it, where, and they adapted it really, really brilliantly. So that is my what went right. I love this movie. I'm so glad that I watched it for this and that we got to talk about it. I think it's really truly one of the best ones that we've done. It's really, it's really good. And I agree. I think it's only gotten better with time because I really think so many of the issues that it's pointed out have either calcified in certain ways. they've become more prominent in our culture post the introduction of social media.

I think in a weird way, maybe we swung a little bit away from this in the late 90s and early 2000s. And that might have been what was hard to recognize in that performance, right? If people didn't understand, oh, this is a satire of 10 years ago, I think that can be difficult to do as a period piece. But now that we've come full circle back to some of those same unfortunate ideologies that the movie's presenting, it works even better. So go watch American Psycho with your mom. You'll all enjoy it. It's on Netflix. Check it out. All right. Well, Lizzie, we need to thank the people that keep this corporate endeavor going. Yeah. Our list of vice presidents. Can we call them those? Absolutely. Who's got the best business card? Oh yeah. These are our full stop supporters on Patreon. Guys, if you want to support the podcast, the best thing you can do is tell somebody to listen to it. The second best thing you can do, leave us a rating review.

on Apple. The next best thing, join our Patreon. You can join for free. For a dollar, you can vote on what film we cover next. Our Halloween vote is now open, so be sure to check that out. You can decide between Halloween, Friday the 13th, Night of the Living Dead, and Evil Dead. A lot of dead in this one. And then, of course, for $5, you can get an ad-free RSS feed. And for $50, you can have your name shouted out like these VPs. Can you give them to us as Patrick Bateman? No, I don't think I can. You have to. Yeah, you just do it.

Yeah, you got it. Brittany Morris. Darren and Dale Conklin. Jake Killen. Kang. Andrew McFagelbeagle. Matthew Jacobson. Grace Potter.

Ellen Singleton. Jewish Re Samant. Lachlan Morrow, Scott Gerwin, Sadie, Just Sadie, Brian Donahue, Chris Leal, Kathleen Olson, Leah Bowman, Steve Winterbauer, Don Schibel, George, Rosemary Southward, Tom Chironany, Michael McGrath. That's all I got. That was pretty good. It was not bad. It was pretty bad, actually.

Thank you guys so much for listening to the podcast. We appreciate you. Of course, check back in in two weeks for our very special episode on The Underworld's Most Prolific Sexual Predator, Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! We are very excited to be covering Beetlejuice. Thanks for voting on that one, guys. Yes, love it.

Send us your recommendation. for films and happy listening in the meantime. Go to patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast to support what went wrong and check out our website at what went wrongpod.com. What went wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer editing music by David Bowman. This episode was written by Naomi Lind.