First Look At Scarlett Johansson As Janet Leigh In ‘Hitchcock’

Alfred Hitchcock seems to be firmly in the zeitgeist at the moment: the British Film Institute is showing an extensive retrospective of the director's work later in the year, and the next twelve months or so will see not one, but two biopics of the legendary master of suspense. The first, "The Girl," is made for British television and focuses on the relationship between Hitch and his "The Birds" star Tippi Hedren, with Toby Jones playing the director and Sienna Miller taking on the actress's role.

But a far starrier take has been behind cameras for a few weeks now: "Hitchcock" (formerly titled "Alfred Hitchcock And The Making Of Psycho"), which sees Anthony Hopkins' take on the filmmaker, with a supporting cast including Helen Mirren, Jessica Biel, Michael Stuhlbarg, James D'Arcy, Toni Colettte, Danny Huston and Michael Wincott, among others, and "Anvil!" director Sacha Gervasi at the helm. As the old title might suggest, the film centers on the making of his 1960 masterpiece, "Psycho," and while we've already had a spookily identical glimpse of Hopkins as Hitch, on-set images courtesy of Yahoo have now provided the first look at Janet Leigh in the film as played by "The Avengers" star Scarlett Johansson.

While it wasn't necessarily the most obvious piece of casting (Johansson is evidently curvier than Leigh ever was), we can sort of see where they're coming from here. Whether the film manages to appeal to an audience wider than cinephiles remains to be seen, but we're certainly excited to see how it turns out. "Hitchcock" should hit theaters in 2013.