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Amazon Lands Lucille Ball Biopic With Cate Blanchett, Aaron Sorkin Attached
(Left photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images. Right photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
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Amazon has bought the rights to Lucy and Desi, a Lucille Ball biopic that has Cate Blanchett attached for the starring role as Ball, reports Deadline. Aaron Sorkin is slated to pen the script.
Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.—the children of Ball and Desi Arnaz—will be producing the film alongside the production company Escape Artists. And, as if the project doesn't already have a slew of powerhouse names, Deadline reports that Javier Bardem is being considered for the role of Arnaz. The producers are also looking for actors to fill the roles of Fred and Ethel, who you undoubtedly will recall from I Love Lucy.
As noted by Variety, Lucy and Desi has been in the pipeline for quite sometime already. It was first reported back in 2015, with Sorkin and Blanchett being named as participants.
According to Deadline, the project will be allowed to cull material from memoirs written by both Ball and Arnaz, as their children had controlled the rights to the memoirs ever since their parents had passed. Ball and Arnaz were married from 1940 until 1960. Their magnum opus—I Love Lucy—ran from 1951 to 1957, and has been oft-cited in the gamut of Best TV Shows lists.
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This won't be the first project to focus on the relationship between Ball and Arnaz. Other works include 1991's Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter, a made-for-TV melodrama that starred Frances Fisher (you may remember her from Titanic) and Maurice Benard as the couple. There was also 2003's Lucy, which starred Rachel York and Danny Pino—this one landed on CBS.
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