Christina Ricci has built her career on playing dark characters in everything from “The Addams Family” to “Sleepy Hollow,” and now she’ll go to the edge of darkness by playing Lizzie Borden in a Lifetime original movie.
The as-yet-untitled movie recounts the tale of Borden who, in 1892, was accused of murdering her father and his second wife with a hatchet at their home in Fall River, Mass. The trial was a media bonanza, and the case captured national attention, even inspiring a popular nursery rhyme (“Lizzie Borden took an axe/And gave her mother forty whacks”).
Borden was controversially acquitted, and the murders remain unsolved. Amazingly, she continued to live in Fall River until her death in 1927.
The case has inspired a number of adaptations in TV, film and on stage.
TV vet Nick Gomez (“Veronica Mars,” “Blue Bloods”) is directing the film for Sony Pictures Television, with Judith Verno is executive producing.
It’s the latest in a string of Lifetime movies centered on highly-publicized female criminal cases, including “Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial In Italy,” and “Prosecuting Casey Anthony.”
Ricci will soon be heard in “The Smurfs 2.”