According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brian De Palma (Scarface) has signed on to direct The Boston Stranglers for producer Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla Motion Pictures.

The thriller is adapted by Alan Rosen (Head of the Class) from Susan Kelly's nonfiction book "The Boston Stranglers: The Public Conviction of Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders."

The film will detail the early-'60s Beantown killings and their controversial resolution.

The Strangler case continues to stir debate. Many question whether Albert DeSalvo — a publicity hound who confessed to the murders and was later stabbed to death while incarcerated on unrelated charges — was the actual killer.

The murders were the basis of a 1968 movie that starred Tony Curtis as DeSalvo and Henry Fonda as the detective pursuing him. That version was based on an earlier book by Gerold Frank. Several TV and DVD movies have been derived from the events.

Hurd will produce, and Kevin Kelly Brown will executive produce.

De Palma has had a recent history of mining the darker, more depraved side of the human experience with such projects as Casualties of War, Redacted and The Black Dahlia.