American Psycho - The Musical?

This is a joke, right?

According to Playbill.com, a musical version of the notorious Bret Easton Ellis novel America Psycho is aiming for Broadway. The novel concerns a consumer-brand-obsessed New York investment banker who is also a heartless serial killer. Geez, that just screams Broadway musical, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm the guy who keeps saying that there's no such thing as a bad idea for a musical, only bad execution. But I have a really hard time thinking of a chainsaw-wielding psychopath singing and dancing (or, perhaps, slashing and mutilating in 4/4 time) at the Winter Garden, or even the Belasco.

On the other hand, given the current crisis in the financial sector, perhaps the time is right for a musical version of what appears to be a satire of Wall Street morality and obsessive materialism. I haven't read the book or seen the 2000 "American Psycho" movie, which starred Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, mostly because I'm a total puss when it comes to violence, and both book and film seemed pretty graphic. I did see Evil Dead: the Musical, which was gory as hell, but in a very cartoonish way. Something tells me that American Psycho: the Musical will be anything but a cartoon. 

No word yet on dates or creative staff, but apparently the Bateman character had a special fondness for the music of Phil Collins. [Insert joke about Collins butchering the score to Tarzan here.] Any conjectures, dear reader, as to composers/lyricists who could do American Psycho justice?

Comments

[Craig]

The movie is gory, but the film is very well made. Very stylized, it would be interesting to say the least. A wonderful flop if anything.

[Justin]

Its a GREAT movie. I would call it a High Brow Horror Flick. As for composers, who dosen't want Flaherty and Ahrens to come back to broadway???

[winer]

this would be the perfect job for john cameron mitchell... patrick bateman and the angry chainsaw

[Scot Colford]

Oh, the movie is indeed wonderful. Mary Harron & Guinevere Turner turned Ellis's novel on its ear in their adaptation. What started out as an arguably gratuitous, self-indulgent, misogynistic book became a smart, ironic, and truly *funny* satire of macho yuppie greed and the dark side of the American dream.

I think this could be a wonderful musical. The only thing that scares me is the temptation to turn it into a jukebox musical. You *know* that someone is totally going to want to fill it with Huey Lewis hits...

[Mackenzie Miller]

Chris, I can't tell you HOW excited I am to see this musical! Although, I'm not so certain how successful it be...I'm ready for a bloodbath like this!! Can't wait to read your review!