Last we heard, Paul Schrader ought to have been in post-production on The Jesuit right about now. The action thriller seems to have stalled, however, so Schrader has secured himself a new gig directing Brett Easton Ellis' **Bait. He's replacing the previously-announced Jonas Pate (Caprica) behind the camera.
This one is not to be confused with Bait 3D which Russell "Highlander" Mulcahy wrote and is currently finishing up in Australia. It's going to be hard not to mix them up though, given that they both involve sharks, joining an already crowded school that also includes imminent releases for Shark Night and Dark Tide.
You might wonder why long-time Scorsese collaborator Schrader, most recently behind The Walker and Adam Resurrected, would be interested in Bait at all, but we're guessing Ellis is the reason. The American Psycho writer's original script seems to hit on his usual preoccupations, involving a sociopathic waiter at an exclusive beach resort suffering humiliation at the hands of a gang of rich frat-boys. He decides to exact revenge by taking them on a boat trip into shark-infested waters, allowing them to be killed one at a time by a great toothy metaphor.
Schrader's never been averse to a bit of genre fare, so we'll be intrigued to see what he brings to this. We're told his first job will be to "touch up" the screenplay. Maybe he'll also have a think about the title.