Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel, screenwriter of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and director of the Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair, has reportedly been tapped by Dreamworks to helm the upcoming remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 psychological thriller Rebecca.Based upon the 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne du Marier, Rebecca was Hitchcock's U.S. debut and starred Joan Fontaine as a naive young woman haunted by the memory of her new husband Maximilian de Winter's (Laurence Olivier) dead first wife. The film gave Hitchcock the first of four Best Picture nominations, and his only success, taking home the Oscar at the 13th Academy Awards in 1941.
The remake of Rebecca has been scripted by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises), although it is expected that Arcel and his regular collaborator Rasmus Heisterberg will deliver a quick rewrite. It becomes the second Hitchcock adaptation of a Daphne du Marier tale to get the remake treatment, with a new version of The Birds having been in development since 2007.