Pedro Almodóvar Says His Next Project Will Likely Be In English

by Cory Everett
May 21, 2011 8:21 AM
4 Comments

¡No lo hagas, Pedro!

Pedro Almodóvar may have just finished up his latest, "The Skin I Live In," but enterprising journalists in Cannes are already digging for details about his follow-up. The Spanish director's fifth film in the last decade has received mixed reviews, with our reviewer calling it "uniquely beautiful and distinctively imperfect," which hasn't stopped us from being excited to check it out for ourselves. Almodóvar is one of world cinema's most distinctive voices, having tackled every genre from comedy to melodrama to horror, usually switching between several of these in the same film. Despite success all around the world, including winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2003 for "Talk To Her," he hasn't yet been lured to Hollywood.

While he isn't signing up for the latest Katherine Heigl rom-com, he has been working on an English language project. Speaking with Indiewire, the director said, “I have a few different projects right now and one of them is in English - for the first time. It’s based on a story and it’s pretty far along actually, but I don’t want to talk about it too much right now because everyone will keep asking me about it." While we'd follow Almodóvar anywhere, we're having a hard time picturing the director's extremely stylized vision working in, say, LA? It's possible that he's describing "Mina," the biopic of the controversial Italian singer we reported on a few months back.

AP also reports that he's writing the script in Spanish but has spoken with an American writer about doing the English version. While switching to English has been the kiss of death for many foreign auteurs (remember "My Blueberry Nights"?), we can think of a couple directors who have successfully crossed over (Ang Lee comes to mind.) Still, it seems like a shaky proposition to us, though we'll surely find out more about the project in the coming months. "The Skin I Live In" opens stateside in November (with a likely North American premiere at the NYFF before that).

More: Foreign Directors, Pedro Almodóvar

4 Comments

| Reply
Andrew James | May 22, 2011 8:57 AMReply

I do in fact remember My Blueberry Nights. It's one of the warmest and most underrated films of the last few years. It's like a good bowl of soup on a rainy afternoon.

Never understood the lashing that film took. Cinematically engaging, fantastic performances and emotionally touching from all sides.
blah | May 21, 2011 10:47 AMReply

about 15 years ago he wrote a treatment for a western story in english, this is probably that same project
Cory Everett | May 21, 2011 9:55 AMReply

Thanks. I knew my Spanish was a little rusty. :)
mpbstereo | May 21, 2011 9:49 AMReply

I believe you mean to say "¡No lo hagas, Pedro!"

"¡No lo hace, Pedro!" loosely translates to "It doesn't do it, Pedro!"