Antonio Banderas is Salvador Dali.
At least, that’s the likely outcome – Banderas is in final negotiations to play the surrealist painter in a biopic called, simply, Dali, which will be directed by Simon West.
Yes, the same Simon West who directed Con Air.
While West may seem an unlikely match to a film about one of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, he’s clearly passionate about the project, having worked on it since 2003, when he optioned a spec script by Jeremy Walters.
And, in our heart of hearts, we’d like to think that Dali would have had a soft spot for Con Air, particularly the scene with the flying car. But we digress…
Banderas, on the other hand, seems a perfect fit to play the artist. The film will cover a specific period of Dali’s life, when he came to America and, it says here, conquered the country with a combination of sex, surrealism and sin, before it all went tits up in a combination of scandal and misfortune.
The movie will focus primarily on Dali’s relationship with his wife, muse and manager, Gala (no word on that role yet) as well as his outrageous lifestyle. West will use a combination of lavish CGI and music in an attempt to capture Dali’s unique eye and joie de vivre.
Filming is set to begin in Spain and England in the first quarter of 2009, which would make it the second Dali film to make it before the cameras. Little Ashes, starring Twilight’s Robert Pattinson as a young Dali, is in the can and awaiting release. There shouldn’t be too much crossover with West’s Dali project, but you now have to fear for the future of Andrew Niccol’s Dali & I: The Surreal Story, to which Al Pacino has been attached for ages.