Aaron Sorkin’s movie about the relationship between I Love Lucy stars and real-life couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is finally getting off the ground, complete with a new star to play Ball. Nicole Kidman was cast as the beloved television icon, with fellow Oscar-winner Javier Bardem cast as Arnaz. The project has been in the works for several years, with Cate Blanchett set to play Ball at one point.
The movie is now titled Being the Ricardos and will be written and directed by Sorkin, who took on directing duties for only the second time with Netflix’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 last year. Amazon Studios and Escape Artists will produce the film, reports Deadline. It has a unique set-up, as it takes place during the one-week production of an I Love Lucy episode, filmed while Ball and Arnaz are faced with a crisis that could end their marriage and careers. The couple’s children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., are among the executive producers.
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News of the project first surfaced in 2017, when Blanchett was interested in starring and Sorkin planned only to write the script. However, after enjoying directing on The Trial of the Chicago 7, Sorkin decided to make Being the Ricardos his second directing effort over the summer. Kidman and Bardem expressed interest, and their deals are still being finalized, Deadline reports. It is not clear when production will start due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Sorkin is best known for creating The West Wing and writing A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, and The Social Network, the last of which earned him an Oscar. He made his directing debut with 2017’s Molly’s Game, which starred Idris Elba and Jessica Chastain. His other TV projects include Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Newsroom. In 2018, he adapted Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird for the stage.
Kidman has an Oscar for The Hours and has been almost everywhere lately. In 2020 alone, she starred in The Prom for Netflix and HBO’s The Undoing miniseries. Her next project is the series Nine Perfect Strangers, an adaptation of Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty’s novel. Bardem, whose Oscar win came for No Country for Old Men, will next be seen in Dune and is now working on Disney’s The Little Mermaid. In 2020, Bardem starred in Sally Potter’s The Road Not Taken.
