Big screen to Broadway: American Psycho to debut on Great White Way

NEW YORK (WABC) -- In 2000, Christian Bale starred in "American Psycho," a psychological thriller about a man leading a double life. Bale's Patrick Bateman was a wealthy Wall Street investment banker by day, but a serial killer by night.

Now, 16 years later, "American Psycho" is moving up the island of Manhattan and heading straight to the Great White Way.

The violent novel-turned-equally-brutal movie is a very unlikely source of inspiration for a Broadway show, which is why composer Duncan Sheik rose to the challenge of making a serial murderer sing.

"Just didn't really make sense initially," he said.

But Sheik is an innovator, and his "Spring Awakening" made a star of Lea Michele.

"He oftentimes says things that we are all thinking but are too scared to say out loud," said Ben Walker, who plays Bateman in the Broadway rendition of the show.

The play is set in the 1980s, a time of excess and decadence.

"This is the perfect vocabulary and world," he said. "And also, some of the incidental music from the 80s is so much fun to sing."

But sweet music aside, a show about a serial killer is a tough sell.

"There's something entertaining about seeing someone who doesn't filter themselves, that doesn't have a limit," Walker said. "What are the consequences of that?"

The official opening night for "American Psycho" is April 21, but the first public performances of the play will begin a week from Thursday.