I really, really hated Running With Scissors, the film debut of Ryan “Nip/Tuck” Murphy, but I have to admit that it was well shot. And when Nip/Tuck was at its creative peak, it was a fine show. So I’m not writing Murphy off yet, especially not when I hear he is planning on making a movie about Alfred Hitchcock’s attempts to get Psycho off the ground.
Called Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the film would chronicle all the obstacles in Hitchcock’s path to getting the film made. “The script was seen as way too dark and perverse (especially with the lead female star getting killed off after 45 minutes), and no one wanted to see a movie based more or less on the macabre exploits of serial killer Ed Gein,” says Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeff Wells, who has gotten the scoop on the movie.
Anthony Hopkins is in talks to play Hitch, and they want Helen Mirren to play Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s wife and collaborator. Lew Wasserman, Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh are all confirmed as characters in the film.
This wouldn’t be Murphy’s next film – he has Dirty Tricks, a film about the women of Watergate, in pre-production. And Wells cautions that, like any impending project, this could never come to fruition. But what a cool movie it will make if it does! It’ll be like Shadow of the Vampire, except good, and Perkins won’t really be a murderer. Murphy has another film, Need, coming, and I do hope that he shows that he can do better than Running With Scissors, because I need to have full faith in this project if it does get underway.