Lucrezia Borgia Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Martha wrote earlier today about how Neil Jordan has been trying to get the film Borgia made forever, to no avail, and how the project has once again been shelved. But we have good news for all you film buffs who have been anxiously awaiting a film about the scandalous Renaissance dynasty - Los Borgia, helmed by Spanish director Antonio Hernández (who is also in production on Cervantes), has been acquired by Spanish company Filmax for worldwide rights outside Italy and Spain.

Hernández's version of the film stars Lluís Homar as  notorious pope Alexander VI, Sergio Peris-Mencheta as his ruthless son César, and María Valverde as César's sister Lucrezia, who, depending which account you believe, was either a wicked femme fatale as ruthless and cunning as her brother and father, or a pawn of both in their unquenchable lust for power.

Neil Jordan has been trying for years to make a movie about the scandalous Borgia clan (creatively entitled Borgia), the best-known members of which - nasty little Lucrezia and conniving Cesare - are the focus of his story. After a version starring Ewan McGregor and Christina Ricci fell apart in 2002 because of budget problems ($50-60 million just wasn't going to do it, apparently), the movie went back onto Jordan's personal "to be made" pile, and he moved on to other things. Then, last year, the project was revived, albeit with an even smaller budget and more limited scope, and Scarlett Johansson and Colin Farrell were signed to star. Because of the nonavailability of its stars, the start of production was pushed back from this spring to September of 2006, but the film was still a go - in fact, European distribution rights had already been sold.

Now, though, it's fallen apart again: last week Jordan himself has pulled out of the movie, "having concluded that he could not make it work with the proposed budget and logistics." It is unlikely, however, that he won't eventually give the project another try - we'll just have to wait a bit longer for our 15th century opulence and debauchery. Jordan, meanwhile, will head off to Hollywood to direct Terrence Howard and Jodie Foster in The Brave One.