Naomi Watts to Channel Marilyn

Naomi Watts has signed on to play Marilyn Monroe in the film adaptation of Blonde, the imagined memoir of Marilyn Monroe by Joyce Carol Oates that was nominated for a Pulitzer in 2000. The story Oates wrote includes allusions to sex with Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, and John F. Kennedy—not to mention a smattering of studio executives and others. The film is to be directed by Andrew Dominik (The Assasination of Jesse James), and the distributor says that he imagines the project as “a modern Raging Bull which will explore one of the most iconic figures of the last century.” Watts’s latest film, Fair Game, is in competition at Cannes and tells the story of Valerie Plame, the outed CIA agent. An added twist: Michelle Williams is signed onto another Monroe movie titled My Week with Marilyn, a Weinstein project that looks into the sex icon’s time in England shooting The Prince and the Showgirl. Let the battle of the Norma Jeane Bakers begin!