One of the most famous noir mystery films of all time, Laura, will be remade by Fox 2000.

Writing the script is bestselling author James Ellroy, whose novels L.A. Confidential and Black Dahlia served as the basis for some of the most memorable noir style crime films in recent years. The original 1944 20th Century Fox production, starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Vincent Price, and based on the novel by Vera Caspary, centered on a police detective’s obsession with the haunting memory of a beautiful and glamorous advertising executive whose apparent murder he is investigating. Typical of mysteries in this vein, the plot is full of surprising twists and turns.

While Ellroy is clearly at home in the genre, he is better known as a novelist than a screenwriter. But many of his books have been given big screen treatment. The screenplay for the 2008 action drama Street Kings is one of the few scripts Ellroy has written.

There is no word on a director for the project. Whoever it is will have big shoes to fill, since the director of the original Oscar-nominated film was the legendary Otto Preminger.

Stuart Till, known for House of Sand and Fog, is the executive producer.