James Devaney/WireImageScarlett Johansson is going under the knife. And it ain't plastic surgery.
The Hollywood vixen has come aboard to play the big screen's original scream queen, Janet Leigh, in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, a tale chronicling the late director's efforts to make a modest horror movie that is now regarded as one of the greatest works in the Alfred Hitchcock canon.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, Johansson will reenact the classic shower scene in which Leigh's character, a secretary who goes to the Bates motel after embezzling money, is mercilessly murdered by Anthony Perkins' disturbed motel owner-manager, Norman Bates.
After realizing what Hitchcock was up to when Psycho shocked audiences upon its release in 1960, Leigh, who died in 2004, famously swore off taking showers because of the scene's chilling impact—movie violence unheard-of in those days.
Anthony Hopkins is attached to play the legendary filmmaker, while Helen Mirren has signed on to essay the role of his wife, Alma Reville.
The plot mostly centers around the relationship between the two as Hitchcock sets about making a film no studio wanted to touch given its subject—you know, the one about the serial killer who stalks his prey in the rural area where he lives, had a domineering mother and dressed in women's clothes.
Scarlett's role is smaller, but on the plus side her fans can console themselves with the thought of seeing plenty of the buxom blond thesp in the buff—for Tinseltown lore has it the shower scene took seven days to film.
(As Hitch used to say, blondes make the best victims.)
If all goes according to plan, the Fox Searchlight project, being helmed by Sacha Gervasi (Anvil! The Story of Anvil), will roll cameras later this year.