Naomi Watts as Marilyn Monroe?

Andrew Dominik is set to direct Blonde — a Marilyn Monroe biopic based on the fictional memoir by Joyce Carol Oates. FirstShowing links to news at ScreenDaily:

Dominik, who last directed The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, explains his desire to make Blonde: “Why is Marilyn Monroe the great female icon of the 20th Century? For men she is an object of sexual desire that is desperately in need of rescue. For women, she embodies all the injustices visited upon the feminine, a sister, a Cinderella, consigned to live among the ashes.”

He added, “I want to tell the story of Norma Jean as a central figure in a fairytale; an orphan child lost in the woods of Hollywood, being consumed by that great icon of the twentieth century.”

Plans are to begin shooting the $20 million film in January 2011.