Set during at the time of the Watergate scandal, the historical drama focuses on the wife of Richard Nixon's attorney general John Mitchell. Played by Meryl Streep, Martha Mitchell was responsible for bringing to light her husband's political wrongdoings.
Annette Bening and Gywneth Paltrow are already on board for the film, which will be Murphy's follow-up to Running with Scissors. Also featuring Bening, Scissors is based on the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs, and his childhood with an alcoholic father and bipolar mother.
The director told /Film of Dirty Tricks: "It's about the women in Watergate, it's very different than Ron Howard's upcoming Frost/Nixon. I love Ron Howard's movie. That was about what a nightmare Nixon was to get the rights for the Frost interview, and the negotiations back and fourth for that. Mine is really much more about one of the first Cassandra's of our century."