In the pantheon of ill-fated 20th-century blondes, Marilyn Monroe might be the only character more difficult to portray than Diana, Princess of Wales, so interest in Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s 2000 novel has been enormous from the start. Ahead of its much-delayed 2022 release on Netflix, here’s a summary of every major talking point about the film so far.

The plot will likely cover Monroe’s life from her childhood through to her death.

The novel Blonde begins as its protagonist is being shunted between foster homes and longing for her absent “Daddy”, and finishes with her rumoured assassination post-affair with JFK. Naturally, Monroe’s career as a Hollywood starlet is central to the plot, but her formative experiences are also covered in detail; Oates first started writing about Monroe’s life after identifying with a photograph of a 15-year-old Norma Jean Baker winning a beauty contest in California in 1941.

If Blonde takes its cues from Oates’s novel, it will be a little different from your average biopic.

Oates has always stressed that Blonde is a fictionalised narrative inspired by Monroe’s life, using her story to probe the often toxic nature of American celebrity rather than providing a definitive account of Norma Jean’s 36 years. (Tellingly, Oates refers to Norma Jean as Norma Jeane throughout the novel, a quirk Dominik carried over to his script.) Her 700-page volume includes characters that are wholly invented, while others are decidedly real, like Whitey, the make-up artist behind Monroe’s ivory skin and what Oates terms her “platinum cotton-candy head”, and Classical Hollywood titan Billy Wilder, who directed Monroe in her two best-known films, The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959).

Even without the Oates connection, Blonde’s cast would be enough to generate Oscars buzz.

Ana de Armas, who recently made her debut as a Bond girl, will be putting her bombshell credentials to good use in the lead role, while Mare of Easttown’s Julianne Nicholson will appear as Monroe’s wildly erratic mother Gladys. In terms of love interests, Bobby Cannavale is “The Ex-Athlete” Joe DiMaggio, a Yankees star and Monroe’s husband for nine tumultuous months; Adrien Brody will play her third husband Arthur Miller (“The Playwright”), who became the subject of an FBI investigation at the beginning of their relationship due to his perceived communist ties; and Caspar Phillipson will take a turn as “The President”, aka John F Kennedy, whom Monroe famously serenaded with “Happy Birthday, Mr President” months before her death.

Brad Pitt, who has a long-standing relationship with director Andrew Dominik, is one of Blonde’s producers.

Given that every detail of Monroe’s life has been dissected since her 1962 death, Andrew Dominick – a director known for his arthouse productions – will likely present an avant-garde take on her story. The Australian auteur is best known for two collaborations with Brad Pitt: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), which saw Pitt play the Jesse James to Casey Affleck’s Robert Ford, and Killing Them Softly (2012), in which Pitt and James Gandolfini appear as a couple of mob-backed hitmen on a revenge quest in Boston. Both flopped spectacularly at the box office, but have since become cult hits, so the fact that Pitt has signed on to produce Blonde through his entertainment company, Plan B, is a real sign of his faith in Dominik’s talents.

Even if Blonde itself fails to win critical approval, it’s likely that Ana de Armas’s performance will win her some nods.

The Cuban actor spent nine months training with a dialogue coach to perfect Monroe’s uniquely breathy voice, in addition to doing ADR sessions in which she re-recorded audio after seeing her footage. Jennifer Johnson, who dressed Margot Robbie for her transformation in I, Tonya, is responsible for the costumes, while an army of make-up artists helped De Armas morph into The Seven Year Itch icon. Images of De Armas from the set prove her three-and-a-half hours in the make-up chair every day were well-spent, with Oates praising her on Twitter in September, “An exquisite portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Ana de Armas and director Andrew Dominik; one without the others could perhaps not have worked this magic.”