Exclusive: nip/tuck...slash! Universal & Ryan Murphy on "Hitchcock"?

We're talking, of course, about "nip/tuck" creator and "Running with Scissors" director Ryan Murphy -- who insiders tell TMZ is being heavily courted for "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of 'Psycho' " - a dramatic thriller set up at Universal's Focus Features.

The script by John McLaughlin is being kept tightly under wraps, but we hear it blends both the actual and the not-so-factual events that lead up to the making of the classic thriller, a retelling wherein a killer outside the script becomes interested in Hitchcock's chilling masterpiece.

Simultaneously, Universal's rehatching another classic Hitchcock movie, albeit one that won't feature the rotund Briton as a featured character: As was first reported in this column, U is readying a remake of Hitchcock's "The Birds," with Michael Bay producing.

If "Psycho" seems like familiar territory for Focus, it's because it is: In 1998 the studio made a frame-by-frame remake of "Psycho" with director Gus Van Sant and actress Anne Heche. And, over the summer, the studio's specialized division plumbed some actual Hollywood history with the fictional "Hollywoodland," about the murder of "Superman" TV star George Reeves with Ben Affleck in the title role.