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Casting Shapes Up for ‘Making of Psycho’ Movie Project: ‘Lost in Translation’ Beauty as Janet Leigh, Oscar Winner as Hitchcock. Influence of Hitchcock’s TV Show

Mar 2, 2012  •  Post A Comment

The part of Janet Leigh, the star of “Psycho,” has been cast in “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. The victim of the famous shower scene will be played by Scarlett Johansson, the story reports.

Anthony Hopkins, an Oscar winner for “The Silence of the Lambs,” is already attached to play Hitchcock, the story notes. Hopkins also has Oscar nominations for “Nixon,” “The Remains of the Day” and “Amistad.”

Johansson is known for her role in “Lost in Translation” (2003), which earned the actress one of her four Golden Globe nominations — the others coming for “Match Point,” “A Love Song for Bobby Long” and “Girl With a Pearl Earring.”

The feature project is in the works at Paramount, having moved there in December after four years in development at Fox Searchlight, the story notes.

The irony is that Paramount was the studio for whom Hitchcock first proposed the idea of making "Psycho," and they did not want to make it.

At the time Hitchcock had been making his TV show, "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," for about five years. One of the keys to his proposal for making the low-budget horror picture "Psycho" was that he was planning to use an almost all TV crew to shoot the picture.

According the the THR article, Helen Mirren, another Oscar winner (“The Queen”) and multiple nominee (“The Last Station,” “Gosford Park,” “The Madness of King George”), will play the legendary director’s wife, Alma Reville, in "The Making of Psycho."

The story adds: “The project is based on the non-fiction book by Stephen Rebello that tracks how Hitchcock, at the height of his game as a director, decided to make a ‘lowly’ horror movie. No studio wanted to touch it initially, so Hitchcock scrounged for financing by himself. The movie, of course, became his biggest hit at the box-office and one of the most influential of all time.”

scarlettjohansson.jpgScarlett Johansson

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