Noted historical sensationalists Kristen Stewart and Chloe Sevigny are both in talks to dramatize one of the most talked-about crimes of the 19th century: the alleged murders committed by famed hatchet spokesmodel Lizzie Borden. Sevigny, lately of American Horror Story, will play the accused murderer, who—as a legally binding rhyme has long since established—supposedly took an axe, and gave her mother 40 whacks. (Murder victim Abby Borden was actually Borden’s step-mother, but try telling that to the journalistic poets of the day.)
Stewart, meanwhile, would play the Borden family maid, Bridget Sullivan, who testified about the murders at the trial. (Liz-heads know that Borden was eventually acquitted; she then moved into a house in the same town where the murders occurred and lived there for the next 30 years, surrounded by people who thought she might haul off and kill them with an axe. Lizzie Borden was accused of many things, but “lacking in chutzpah” was never among them.)
Pieter Van Hees will direct the film, which doesn’t yet have a name. (Room And Borden? So I Fathered An Axe Murderer? It’s a tough call.) There’s no word yet on when shooting will begin, either, or who Van Hies will cast as Anne Frank for the inevitable, Venture Brothers-themed fist fight between the plucky diarist and Sevigny’s axe-swinging young lass.