Hilary Duff as Bonnie?

Filmmaker Tonya Holly is upset that reporters have been treating her planned production of "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde" as if the movie were a crime. Instead of focusing on the potential promise of the project, Holly says the media have been fixated on what she called "the catfight between my lead actress and Faye Dunaway."

Holly's lead actress -- the woman who will be the 2009 version of Depression-era bank robber Bonnie Parker -- is Hilary Duff, a pop singer and teen idol as well as a movie and TV star.

When Dunaway -- who starred in the landmark 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde" -- learned that Duff would be her big-screen successor, she told the press: "Couldn't they at least cast a real actress?"

This led to Duff commenting (probably accurately) about Dunaway: "I think that my fans that are going to go see the movie don't even know who she is." Then Duff, 21, said of the 68-year-old, plastic-surgery-altered actress: "I might be mad if I looked like that, too."

Serious cinephiles, however, are more worried about the project in general than the casting of Duff or Kevin Zegers ("Trasamerica"), who is set to play Clyde. Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" -- with Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow -- generally is regarded as one of the most significant American films of the past half-century, an Oscar nominee that brought political astuteness and a European-art-house sensibility to the Hollywood gangster tradition.

Holly, 46, defended her interest in the outlaw duo.

"I'm very passionate about this story," said Holly, who plans to begin shooting the $15 million production in late April in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

"The reaction has really blown my mind," she said, referring to critics of her project. "It's like the one from '67 is the only way anybody wants to see this story told."

In defense of Holly and Duff, it should be pointed out that Penn and Dunaway were consolation choices for the '67 film. Originally, producers had hoped to hire Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut to direct, and Beatty had wanted Natalie Wood or Tuesday Weld for Bonnie.

Also, Duff is only two years younger than Bonnie, when Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down in Louisiana on May 23, 1934. (Dunaway was 26 when "Bonnie and Clyde" opened in the United States in August 1967.)

Said Holly: "I think people should give Hilary a chance to do a breakout role, because if I remember correctly, it was a breakout role for Faye, as well."

She added, "I think it's very sad, the response to my film. The critics have forgotten that these were real people -- Bonnie and Clyde were real. There are many, many ways to tell this story."