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3 months ago
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EXCLUSIVE: Studiocanal, The Picture Company, Entertainment 360 & Zaftig Films are out to buyers on a TV series based on the acclaimed 2021 documentary The Lost Leonardo, about how a crumbling painting depicting Christy in the Renaissance called The Salvador Mundi was restored and found to possibly be the final work of Leonardo Da Vinci around the time the master painter did the Mona Lisa. Juliane Moore will star as Dianne Modestini, an art restorer who saw something special in the painting, and painstakingly restored it. She and everyone else were surprised to watch it go from a $1000 estate sale item to the priciest painting ever bought, fetching $450 million by the time the auctioneer banged the gavel at the New York auction house Christie’s.
In between the restoration and sale, there were numerous mysterious twists, turns and controversies from the underbelly of the fine art world. But it all started with the original buyers who engaged Modestini, the wife of a dying legendary art restorer who took on a project which looked like a wreck when she got it. Skeptics said most of the paint visible in the finished product was hers and only a portion by Da Vinci. But Modestini found things under the top layer of paint that gave it gravitas as a masterpiece, like the position of the thumb that was similar to what Da Vinci painted in other works.
The characters in the docu are eccentric and fun, including an intermediary who bought the painting to transfer to a Russian oligarch. Latter was enraged to discover he wasn’t told by his broker that he’d tacked on an enormous markup, which led the oligarch to dedicate himself to ruining the intermediary. The eventual auction buyer never stepped forward, but is widely believed to be Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The series endeavors to discover whether the Lost Leonardo is the greatest art discovery of our time, or one of the great scams in art history.
In addition to playing Modestini, Oscar winner Moore will be Executive Producer. Moore is currently starring in the Starz hit series Mary And George, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for the Todd Hayes film May, December. Requa & Ficarra will direct, with credits including Rabbit Hole and WeCrashed, and they will also Executive Produce under their Zaftig Films banner along with partner Charlie Gogolak. Weeks, who created the series and wrote the pilot episode, will serve as showrunner and Executive Producer.
The Picture Company’s Alex Heineman & Andrew Rona will Executive Produce through their overall deal at Studiocanal, along with Entertainment 360’s (Netflix’s Ripley) Geoff Shaevitz and Marc Mounier. The documentary was produced by Christoph Jong & Andreas Dalsgaard, who will be also be EPs. Ron Halpern and Shana Eddy will oversee for Studiocanal.
Weeks recently sold a pilot to Netflix with Chernin Entertainment and is adapting the story of polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk for Bron, with Jeremy Strong attached to star and 21 Laps producing. She is repped by Entertainment 360, Gersh and attorney Jennifer Grey.
Requa and Ficarra are repped by CAA and attorneys Jeff Frankel and Joel McKuin; Moore is repped by WME, Entertainment 360, and attorney William Sobel.
