“Good evening.” Fox Searchlight has decided to give Sacha Gervasi’s ‘Hitchcock,’ with Sir Anthony Hopkins playing the ‘Psycho’ director, a November release date. That’s a bit of a shock, given the fact that the busy Thanksgiving weekend seemed to be set with Ang Li’s ‘Life of Pi,’ David O. Russell’s ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’ and the animated ‘Rise of the Guardians.’ But now we’re tasked with figuring out if Searchlight has an Oscar player up its sleeve.

Hopkins will play Hitchcock in a film based on Stephen Rebello’s book, ‘Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.’ The casting’s pretty spectacular. Scarlett Johansson’s down to play Janet Leigh (shower scene!), Jessica Biel has been cast as Vera Miles, Helen Mirren is playing Alma Reville, and James D’Arcy will play Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins.

The official release date, November 23, 2012, speaks volumes for the film’s Oscar potential. Are you going to count Hopkins or Mirren out of a race when they are playing larger-than-life figures in a Hollywood biopic? If Sir Anthony nails Hitch, he could go from “unknown” to “contender” overnight.

Now we just need to see the film… or a trailer, at the very least. How much Hitchcock is too much Hitchcock, though? Audiences soon will get the chance to decide for themselves as multiple Master of Suspense projects are heading to the finish line. In addition to Gervasi’s film, the TV movie ‘Bates Motel’ is in production; and Toby Jones is still on tap to play Hitchcock in HBO's ‘The Girl,’ a film about the making of ‘The Birds.’

In the meantime, here’s the new ‘Hitchcock’ poster.  Think you’ll check this one out?

Hitchcock poster
Fox Searchlight
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