It may not seem like it, but making a sequel is no easy task. Sometimes, a follow-up manages to live up to the original or even surpass it, and in other cases, it falls so flat that audiences barely remember it ever existed — but this kind of sequel isn’t just bad for the sake of being bad, because there’s always a reason behind it. And well, here we have a particularly bizarre case that still manages to surprise anyone who watches it, mostly because of how disconnected it feels from the original, almost as if no one involved had any idea what made the first movie great. And that impression has some basis, given it was originally a completely unrelated project.
To make it pretty clear, almost nobody even knows it exists, and those who do probably wish they could forget it was ever made. The craziest part is that it’s the sequel to a 2000s classic that is now even being considered for a remake. Still, it’s interesting to look at what happened behind the scenes, since it involves an existing script, a studio making a decision in the middle of production, and a movie that was basically turned into a sequel just to see if the name could generate some buzz.
Who hasn’t heard of American Psycho, right? A major adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel, the movie turned Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) into a pop culture icon, became one of Bale’s most memorable roles, was praised as one of the best film critiques of its kind, and earned plenty of recognition and prestige in the industry. Then came American Psycho 2 in 2002, telling the story of Rachael Newman (Mila Kunis), a criminology student who desperately wants to become an assistant to Professor Robert Starkman (William Shatner). However, she’s not willing to let competitors, classmates, or anyone else get in the way of her plans. So, whenever someone stands between her and her goal, she finds a way to take them out. It’s basically a college slasher.
And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that idea. The problem is that the movie is using the name of the original classic to tell this story, and that’s not even an exaggeration, as that strategy wasn’t part of the plan from the beginning. In fact, the screenplay originally had a different title: The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die, and it had absolutely nothing to do with Bateman’s story. And by the time the project was being reshaped by Lionsgate into a follow-up, it was already in production, which is pretty wild to think about. Apparently, the thinking was that if the story already had a psychopath, why not turn it into an American Psycho story? It’s a pretty questionable decision and an extremely hard one to defend.
Okay, so how do you make enough of a connection to at least make it feel like a sequel? The script was changed so that Bateman would show up right at the beginning. In a flashback, a young Rachael witnesses him killing her babysitter. His appearance is basically just a cameo, but the problem is that it almost feels like a joke, because after watching the murder, Rachael grabs an ice pick and kills Bateman herself. And to make things even worse, since Bale wasn’t part of the cast to play him, we get a masked serial killer instead (played by Michael Kremko). American Psycho 2 is supposed to establish the protagonist’s origins, right? Instead, it ends up feeling more like a statement that the movie has no idea what to do with the original’s legacy. After all, what exactly does this add? If Bateman is killed by a child, he’s not really a threat to Rachael, and if Rachael was traumatized by the experience, the film doesn’t explore that in any meaningful way. You could argue the idea was to turn the killer into some kind of influence on her, but it’s poorly developed.
But the most important thing that makes all of this so strange is that American Psycho never worked because its protagonist was a creative killer; it worked because he was the perfect product of the environment he lived in. His apartment, his clothes, his business cards, his restaurants, his conversations about work, and even the way the characters mistake each other for someone else are all part of the same satire. Bateman could spend minutes talking about Huey Lewis and the News before doing something horrific, and that’s exactly what makes him the character he is to this day. American Psycho 2, meanwhile, doesn’t really have that kind of dry humor; it’s basically a teen thriller. Put both movies side by side, and the difference becomes glaring — which is probably why even the film’s own star doesn’t like it.
At the time the movie came out, Kunis was still a long way from the career she would eventually have. In 2002, she was mainly known for That ’70s Show, and American Psycho 2 could have just been another early credit on her résumé. But the actress later revealed that she didn’t even know she was making a sequel to the classic. As mentioned earlier, much of the feature’s final form came from changes made during production, so according to her, the project she originally agreed to was something else entirely. “Please—somebody stop this,” Kunis said at the time about the idea of a third installment, since the studio was considering turning it into a franchise. “Write a petition. When I did the second one, I didn’t know it would be American Psycho II. It was supposed to be a different project, and it was re-edited, but, ooh… I don’t know. Bad.” (via The Independent)
And she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t exactly thrilled — Ellis wasn’t excited about it either. The author said he only became aware of the project shortly before its video release and admitted that he never even watched the entire movie. Overall, Ellis found the sequel really strange and was disappointed by how poorly it turned out. He revealed that American Psycho 2 came about after Lionsgate considered adding a serial killer to the adaptation of his other book, The Rules of Attraction. But when the director pushed back against that, they apparently opted to make a sequel to the 2000 classic instead. And, as the production history indicates, the screenplay was essentially found among existing projects and repurposed afterward. In other words, there was a major push from the studio, but not exactly a carefully planned thing.
American Psycho 2 was met with an overwhelmingly negative response and was completely slammed by critics. It never made it to theaters, instead going straight to video, and currently has a 23% critics’ score and an 18% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a shame considering the original concept had the potential to make for a far more compelling feature.
There are plenty of bad sequels out there, but few have a production story this blatantly weird. In the end, the lead actress didn’t want to be part of the movie as it ultimately turned out, the author of the original work didn’t recognize the sequel as an extension of his story, the infamous Bateman shows up only to be killed practically within the first few minutes, and the screenplay that started the whole project wasn’t even written as a sequel in the first place. The studio’s strategy completely backfired. If The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die had simply remained The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die, maybe nobody would have criticized the project so heavily that it ended up becoming one of the biggest sequel disasters Hollywood has ever seen.
