(Photo: Getty Images)

Keira Knightley has signed up to star in Boston Strangler, a movie about the vital role that two female investigative journalists played in reporting on the infamous 1960s serial killer.

According to Deadline, Knightley will portray Loretta McLaughlin, who was the first reporter to draw a connection between a spate of murders in the Boston, MA area in the early 1960s. In the process, she broke the story of the so-called "Boston Strangler."

The stellar investigative reporting conducted by McLaughlin and her co-worker Jean Cole was all the more remarkable given that newsrooms at the time were hardly immune to prevailing sexist attitudes. When McLaughlin passed away in 2018, her former newspaper the Boston Globe hailed her as "groundbreaking."

The movie is being written and directed by Matt Ruskin, whose previous credits include the 2017 crime movie Crown Heights. Shooting is due to begin in December on location in Boston. There's no word yet, however, on who might co-star opposite Knightley as Jean Cole.

In the meantime, we don't have too long to wait to see Keira Knightley in her next movie, the holiday comedy-drama Silent Night, which is set to debut on AMC+ and in theaters December 3. You can also check out our feature on seven times Keira Knightley spoke up on topics close to her heart.

Are you looking forward to Boston Strangler? Who would you cast as Jean Cole?