Casting About: Julia, Jackie and Hitch

Three very different cultural icons will be played by four very different actors in upcoming film projects.

First up is a first: a movie based on a blog ... sort of. Columbia is adapting for the screen the book Julia and Julie: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, Julie Powell's memoir about her yearlong attempt to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Powell wrote all about it on her foodie blog first, and then put it all in the book, which the movie is technically based on, but hey, I can always dream about Movie Dearest: The Movie, can't I? And who better to play MD ... I mean, Child then mistress of the movie accent, Miss Meryl Streep. The film, whose title will be shortened to just Julia and Julie, will co-star the Enchanted Amy Adams as the author, with Nora Ephron directing.

Next up, Jeanne Tripplehorn will portray Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the now-filming Grey Gardens remake. As every fan of the documentary knows, Jackie came to the Edie Beales' aide when the bad ol' health department threatened to raid the dilapidated titular estate then inhabited by her aunt and cousin, along with dozens of cats and raccoons. Jackie herself did not appear in the original film, but this further proves my theory that the new film fleshes out the story just a tad.

And it appears the movie's master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, is the subject of two in-the-works projects. First up is Alfred Hitchcock Presents. No, not a big screen version of the classic television anthology series, the film will instead take a look at the troubled making of Psycho, and none other then Anthony Hopkins will portray the Hitchster (and he already has the voice of his fellow Englishman down pat). Running With Scissors helmer Ryan Murphy will direct, with another Oscar-winning favorite, Helen Mirren, expected to play Mrs. Hitchcock.

The other Hitchcock movie will also focus on the filming of one his pictures, Number 13. Never saw it? Well, nobody has, as it was never completed. What was supposed to have been his directorial debut has been mired in mystery for decades, but this new film, also titled Number 13, seeks to shade a little light on it ... and get a few laughs. Its Hitch, Dan Fogler (of Balls of Fury fame), describes it as a sort of Hitchcock in Love, tweaking the facts (what little there are in this case) in the same manner as that Shakespeare flick. Ewan McGregor, Ben Kinsley and Emily Mortimer will also star.

UPDATE: Stanley Tucci, Meryl Streep's The Devil Wears Prada co-star, will play her husband in Julie and Julia.

Links via Variety.com, Blogs.salon.com, Imdb.com, HollywoodReporter.com, Hollywood-Elsewhere.com and MTV.com.