‘Bates Motel’ Season 5 Spoilers: Rihanna Cast In Iconic Role

Bates Motel fans have finally gotten the news they’ve been waiting to hear. It was announced on Friday at San Diego Comic-Con that singer Rihanna would be stepping into the iconic role of Marion Crane, Norman Bates’ famous murder victim in the movie Psycho.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Rihanna has been cast in the role of Marion Crane. The announcement was made to surprised fans during the event, and Rihanna even recorded a video for the fans in attendance at the panel.

As many Bates Motel viewers know, Season 5 will be the last for the dark A&E horror series, which is a prequel to the Alfred Hitchcock classic film Psycho.

Rihanna will take on the much-talked-about role of Marion Crane, the character originally played by Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother, Janet Leigh, in the 1960s classic. In the film, Marion checks into Bates Motel after stealing a large sum of money from her boss. Unfortunately for her, she never checks out, as she becomes just one of Norman Bates’ victims in an unforgettable murder scene that takes place in the shower. However, the TV series may change up the character’s story arc and/or death scene a bit for the show.

Bates Motel executive producers Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin released a statement about casting Rihanna as Marion Crane after the big Comic-Con announcement over the weekend.

“We wanted to thrust the iconic role into a contemporary spotlight and redefine it in a meaningful and exciting new way. We also heard Rihanna was a fan of the show, and we were huge fans of hers, so it was the perfect collision of creativity and fate.”

The big casting news has fans even more excited for Season 5 of the series, which won’t return to A&E until 2017. The last season of Bates Motel is sure to be amazing, especially after the final two episodes of Season 4 blew viewers away.

When fans last saw Norman Bates, he had just killed his mother, Norma, played by Vera Farmiga, in an attempted murder/suicide. However, Sheriff Romero saved Norman before he could follow his mother into the afterlife. Norman then completely lost his mind as he gave his mother a funeral, but he returned to the cemetery to dig up her corpse and take it home with him.

In a disturbing scene, Norman begs his dead mother to return to him and even glues her eyes open. Bates Motel viewers then watched as Norman’s mental illness completely took over, and his mother was alive and well again in his mind. The season ended there, setting up for a completely crazy Season 5.

“Season five is about the ways in which our show does and more specifically does not intersect with the events of Psycho,” showrunner Carlton Cuse explained. “We are going to see a version of Norman that is much closer now to the one in the movie, but the way in which he acts and the events in the story will not be the same as the movie. They will cross paths with some of the events in the movie and lead to an ultimate resolution. What that resolution is and how that plays out is something that will be not disconnected to the movie Psycho but will be very much our own story in the same way the entire series has been.”

It may seem like a long time to wait to see how Bates Motel wraps up Norman Bates’ story, but fans are willing to do so in order find out how the twisted story will end, and if it will follow in the footsteps of Psycho.

What are your thoughts on Rihanna being cast as Marion Crane in Bates Motel Season 5?

[Image via A&E]