Alfred Hitchcock was a big ‘ol sumbitch, so he’s got personality enough for more than one film about him. Right? Especially when the first is Number 13 featuring Dan Fogler, who burned his sack and possibly his career but not the ticket counter when his Balls of Fury dropped. At least he’s no longer a soprano.
As Hitch, flick number two will feature Anthony Hopkins, once a slightly more respectable actor than Fogler. Fogler’s got a Tony. What has the Hop got? Oscar, schmoscar. What else? Couple of Emmys and Baftas? Have you seen the Bafta? It’s a cheap mask! And not even one you can play with. At least Hopkins will have help from Helen Mirren, who’ll appear as Hitch’s wife and collaborator Alma Reville.
The ‘better be bound to change’ title is Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, which leads my well-trained investigative sense to conclude that the film will be based on Stephen Rebello’s seriously incredibly great account of the making of, um, Psycho. Really, as far as representing filmmaking goes, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making Of Psycho is the book equivalent to Hearts Of Darkness. Go ahead and buy it from us and Amazon.
(Current editions also have a much more obvious cover now than when I bought the copy sporting the supremely creepy red overlay on Hitchcock still. Plus, it now comes packaged with a bonus joke quote from Gus Van Sant!)
Running With Scissors and Nip/Tuck writer/director Ryan Murphy will be directing and co-scripting with John J. McLaughlin, as was rumored months ago. As able as Murphy is, it’s still an odd project. This makes for primo book material, but it’s difficult to estimate how he’ll crack this script and make it more than just an adoring gaze at Hitch at work. On the page this is an engrosing tale, but blowing up the details to screen size could easily backfire, unless there’s a proper dissection of Psycho and Hitch’s working relationships with steely blonde actresses.
CGI Hopkins has brought me down more often than he’s brung the noise of late, but he’s a responsible enough actor that the job of becoming a real person who’s also very well known to any potential audience might be enough to make him consider acting just this one time. I’d like to think that the sense of discipline that made him rock Nixon hasn’t fully evaporated in the past decade. Not that it helped any when he was playing Kellogg. Guess I’ll wait to see his fake teeth as Hitch.
There’s a video clip over at MTV with Hopkins talking about the project, in case you want to get a really early taste.