Still hot off his “Pain and Glory” Oscar nomination a few years ago, Antonio Banderas has been set to star in a six-hour limited series adaptation “The Monster of Florence” at StudioCanal.
The project is based on the novel by U.S. fiction writer Douglas Preston and Italian crime reporter Mario Spezi and is a reconstruction of eight grisly double homicides believed to have been committed single-handedly between 1968 and 1985 in and around the famed Italian city.
Banderas will play Spezi in the series which narrates how he and Preston identify the killer and conduct an interview with him. The two then find themselves the victim of a vendetta with the Italian police who tap their phones, accuse them of participation in Satanic rites, and at one point charge Spezi with being the Monster himself.
Oscar-nominated Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel (“A Royal Affair”) will direct from scripts written by Arcel (who also wrote the original “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) and Anders Thomas Jensen (“In a Better World”).
If the title sounds familiar it should. Not only did the case partly inspire the Thomas Harris novel “Hannibal,” but attempts at a film adaptation of the property have been in the works for almost fifteen years.
“Mission: Impossible” franchise duo of actor/producer Tom Cruise and filmmaker Chris McQuarrie were long attached to that version, while George Clooney was linked to at least produce at one point. However, the project never made it beyond the scripting stage.
Preston is also famous for he and Lincoln Child’s long-running Aloysius Pendergast book series that began with “The Relic” (which became the 1997 film). Gale Anne Hurd was producing a series adaptation of that property several years ago but it remains stuck in development.
Source: Variety
