TORONTO – While the movie-remake business has arguably done enough to turn people off of movies forever, the impact of Luca Guadagnino being hired to an American Psycho reboot could have a ripple affect on the Italian Film Industry – and its filmmakers.

An impassioned Adam Fogelson, Chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group announced just days ago: “We are thrilled to add another elite filmmaker to our upcoming slate…Luca is a brilliant artist, and the perfect visionary to create a whole new interpretation of this potent and classic IP”. The film will be a new take on Bret Ellis’ 1991 novel and “not a remake” or sequel to the 2000 film by Mary Harron – which starred the notorious method Actor Christian Bale.

For those unfamiliar with the story, American Psycho follows a young Investment Banker who moonlights as a serial killer. In Harron’s interpretation, the comical depiction of self-unaware Wall Street stiffs supplied humour to an otherwise disturbing film about serial and sadistic murder. Nonetheless, American Psycho – both the novel and film – are considered seminal works within the genre.

Circling back to Guadagnino’s hiring, not since the films of Gabriele Muccino or Sergio Leone has an Italian-born Director worked on such large-scale American films or co-productions.

In an industry with fierce competition for the top projects [in Hollywood], and where Studios tend to work with the same troop of talent, the odds of landing a marquee role in a major motion picture are as good as winning the lottery. And that’s just considering American talent. Working in Hollywood as a foreigner brings with it an extra set of challenges.

In the case of Italian-born filmmakers making strictly American produced and financed films, the list is so short you’d have to travel back to 1984 for one of the names – Sergio Leone. Known mostly for his “Spaghetti Westerns”, which were shot in Spain with Italian money, his last film Once Upon A Time In America was shot, produced and distributed by Warner Bros in the US.

For another name, fast-forward to 2008 where L’Ultimo Bacio Director Gabriele Muccino was handed 55 million dollars by Columbia Pictures to direct Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness – which earned 307 million dollars worldwide and an Oscar nomination for the Smith. In Muccino’s case, he was entrusted with a few more American-based films, including Fathers and Daughters starring Russell Crowe and Playing for Keeps with Gerard Butler.

So why Guadagnino now? His work tends to explore the restricted areas of the human psyche, roped off by social mores and convention. Society’s freewheeling agents often lure his characters into dark corners, placing the innocent into lurid situations – and inviting his audiences to glimpse life’s forbidden fruits.

Who better then to direct a film about a young urban professional with a secret knack for killing? Guadagnino’s resume also includes Bones and All, Challengers and Call Me By Your Name – the latter a film that earned Dune star Timothy Chalomet global recognition and an Oscar nod. Some are even speculating that Chalomet could star as the new Psycho, Patrick Bateman.

With this, all signs are pointing to a classic in the making with Guadagnino’s American Psycho, which more than a notch on his belt, should be seen as an opening for other Italian filmmakers to make their mark in tinsel town.

Image of Luca Guadagnino courtesy of John Phillips; poster of American Psycho (2000) courtesy of Lionsgate Films      

Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix