EXCLUSIVE: Studiocanal, The Picture Company, Leisure 360 & Zaftig Movies are out to consumers on a TV sequence primarily based on the acclaimed 2021 documentary The Lost Leonardo, about how a crumbling portray depicting Christy within the Renaissance known as The Salvador Mundi was restored and located to probably be the ultimate work of Leonardo Da Vinci across the time the grasp painter did the Mona Lisa. Juliane Moore will star as Dianne Modestini, an artwork restorer who noticed one thing particular within the portray, and painstakingly restored it. She and everybody else had been shocked to look at it go from a $1000 property sale merchandise to the priciest portray ever purchased, fetching $450 million by the point the auctioneer banged the gavel on the New York public sale home Christie’s.
In between the restoration and sale, there have been quite a few mysterious twists, turns and controversies from the underbelly of the superb artwork world. However it began with the unique consumers who engaged Modestini, the spouse of a dying legendary artwork restorer who took on a challenge which regarded like a wreck when she bought it. Skeptics mentioned a lot of the paint seen within the completed product was hers and solely a portion by Da Vinci. However Modestini discovered issues below the highest layer of paint that gave it gravitas as a masterpiece, just like the place of the thumb that was just like what Da Vinci painted in different works.
The characters within the docu are eccentric and enjoyable, together with an middleman who purchased the portray to switch to a Russian oligarch. Latter was enraged to find he wasn’t instructed by his dealer that he’d tacked on an unlimited markup, which led the oligarch to dedicate himself to ruining the middleman. The eventual public sale purchaser by no means stepped ahead, however is broadly believed to be Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The sequence endeavors to find whether or not the Misplaced Leonardo is the best artwork discovery of our time, or one of many nice scams in artwork historical past.
Along with enjoying Modestini, Oscar winner Moore will likely be Govt Producer. Moore is at the moment starring within the Starz hit sequence Mary And George, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for the Todd Hayes movie Might, December. Requa & Ficarra will direct, with credit together with Rabbit Gap and WeCrashed, and they’re going to additionally Govt Produce below their Zaftig Movies banner together with associate Charlie Gogolak. Weeks, who created the sequence and wrote the pilot episode, will function showrunner and Govt Producer.
The Image Firm’s Alex Heineman & Andrew Rona will Govt Produce by way of their total deal at Studiocanal, together with Leisure 360’s (Netflix’s Ripley) Geoff Shaevitz and Marc Mounier. The documentary was produced by Christoph Jong & Andreas Dalsgaard, who will likely be even be EPs. Ron Halpern and Shana Eddy will oversee for Studiocanal.
Weeks just lately bought a pilot to Netflix with Chernin Leisure and is adapting the story of polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk for Bron, with Jeremy Sturdy connected to star and 21 Laps producing. She is repped by Leisure 360, Gersh and lawyer Jennifer Gray.
Requa and Ficarra are repped by CAA and attorneys Jeff Frankel and Joel McKuin; Moore is repped by WME, Leisure 360, and lawyer William Sobel.
