It’s difficult to tell whether Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader teaming up with American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis is a match made in heaven or hell. However it appears it’s happening as Variety reports they’re both on for the shark-infested psychological horror project, Bait.
Paul Schrader will direct the project (replacing the previously announced Jonas Pate (Caprica)), and will collaborate with Bret Easton Ellis, who came up with the original script, on the final version of the screenplay. The film centres on a sociopathic young man itching to take his revenge against the wealthy. The man, who works at a posh beach club, angles his way on to a yacht filled with the obnoxious elite, commandeering it into waters filled with the finned man-eaters. So it seems we’re heading into obvious metaphor territory here, but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Expect the title to change though, as Russell Mulcahy is finishing up another shark-filled tale called Bait 3D, which sees the fishy predators terrorising people in a flooded supermarker (yes, that really is the plot). Mulcahy’s movie will reach cinemas first and it’s unlikely another shark movie called Bait would come so soon afterwards.
The producers are aiming for a November start in Puerto Rico, with casting beginning immediately.