IMDb is asking the question that's been bouncing around Hollywood circles ever since the project was announced: who steps into the perfectly tailored suit of Patrick Bateman for Luca Guadagnino's reimagining of American Psycho?
Why This Remake Changes Everything About the Casting Conversation
Christian Bale's 2000 performance in Mary Harron's original is one of those rare turns that feels permanently fused to a character — the smirk, the business card obsession, the unsettling charm. So why would anyone dare remake it? Because Guadagnino isn't anyone. The director behind Bones and All, Challengers, and Call Me by Your Name has a specific, sensory, deeply psychological approach to desire and violence that could pull something entirely new out of Bret Easton Ellis's novel. He's less interested in satire than in unease — which means the Bateman of this version might be less a punchline about 1980s excess and more a genuinely disturbing portrait of a man coming apart at the seams.
That shift in tone demands a completely different kind of actor. Forget the smug, self-aware energy Bale weaponized. Guadagnino's Bateman might need someone who can play stillness as menace, beauty as emptiness. The role is wide open, and the fancast debate is very much alive.
What myCast Fans Are Already Saying
The myCast community has been thinking about this longer than you might expect, and the picks across multiple fan stories reveal some genuinely compelling instincts.
The most intriguing consensus pick so far comes from the American Psycho story, where Bill Skarsgård leads the Patrick Bateman vote with 2 votes — a small sample, but a choice that makes a lot of sense on reflection. Skarsgård has that rare quality of being simultaneously magnetic and deeply unsettling, something he's demonstrated well beyond Pennywise. He can do polished and predatory in a way that would suit Guadagnino's aesthetic perfectly.
Over in the American Psycho story — the most expansive fan cast on the platform with 19 roles filled out — Robert Pattinson has been nominated for the lead role. Given that Pattinson has been Guadagnino's muse in recent years (he starred in Queer, the director's most recent film), this pick feels less like wishful thinking and more like genuine inside baseball. Pattinson has proven in The Lighthouse, The Batman, and Good Time that he can carry films on raw, unsettling intensity alone. Fans in that same story have also cast as Paul Allen — a fascinating choice that would put two of Hollywood's most interesting young leading men in direct competition on screen, which is exactly the kind of casting dynamic Guadagnino tends to thrive on.