New releases, music videos and album news — indie, rap, rock and pop. Always covering Ren, Chris Webby, Sam Tompkins, bbno$, CHINCHILLA, Muse, Yungblud and more.
The 2000 role that would have been “very bad for everyone involved” if Leonardo DiCaprio played it
Leonardo DiCaprio was announced in 1998 as the lead in *American Psycho*, despite director Mary Harron’s opposition. She insisted that Christian Bale was right for Patrick Bateman and refused to make the film with DiCaprio, a dispute that led to her dismissal before she was eventually rehired.
Harron argued that DiCaprio’s star status after *Titanic* would have raised the budget and made audiences’ expectations harder to manage. She also thought he was too young and would be miscast, risking a film that felt offensive rather than disturbing. The expensive version collapsed, and Bale remained attached, preparing for the role for nine months.
In short
- Harron opposed casting DiCaprio in *American Psycho*.
- She believed his fame would inflate the budget and distort the film.
- Bale ultimately played Bateman after Harron was rehired.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
DiCaprio’s star power could have brought a larger budget and a wider audience to a difficult, challenging novel, giving the film greater cultural reach. Producers might reasonably have seen him as a commercially viable lead, while his performance could have offered a different interpretation of Bateman and tested assumptions about his range.
The case against
Harron’s concern was that DiCaprio’s fame and youth would make him a poor fit for Bateman and distort the film’s tone. A bigger budget and heightened audience expectations could have pushed the adaptation towards glamour or conventional thrills, weakening its unsettling critique; her insistence on Bale reflected a commitment to the character and the film she intended to make.