A&E Developing ‘Psycho’ Prequel Series ‘Bates Motel’

Now A&E is developing Bates Motel, a series that would serve as a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1960 film Psycho. Because we need to know all about how Norman Bates got to be crazy, right? Psycho IV: The Beginning didn’t cover that angle well enough.

THR says that Bates Motel will “offer an understanding into how Norman Bates’ psyche developed and would tell the back story of the film’s killer, learning of how his mother, Norma, and her lover damaged him, transforming him into serial-killing motel owner.” (via)

My knee jerk reaction is to cast this off as a Mad Men/Dexter style style thriller with the unnecessary backdrop of Psycho, but I can actually see this working.