"Once Upon a Time in America" Origins Movie in Works

Italy’s Leone Film Group — which is in Cannes as a producer of James Grey’s competition entry “Paper Tiger” — is developing an origins movie about Sergio Leone’s quest to shoot “Once Upon a Time in America,” the gangster epic that premiered at Cannes in 1984 and is now considered a masterpiece.

Leone directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli, and Franco Ferrini.

The film is based on Harry Grey's semi-autobiographical 1952 novel "The Hoods".

The movie starred Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Tuesday Weld, and Treat Williams. 

"Once Upon a Time in America" follows a former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan 35 years later, where he must once again confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

“It’s basically the story of a man who chases a dream for his entire life,” Raffaella Leone, who is Sergio Leone’s daughter, said in a statement. “Or, at least, who took 15 years to make a movie and didn’t do anything else until he managed to make it. And it’s told with my father’s irony.”

Italian directorial duo Giuseppe Stasi and Giancarlo Fontana — who broke out Prime Video’s dark and comic crime series “The Bad Guy” — are set to helm the yet-to-be-titled “Once Upon a Time in America” origins picture that they are writing with “The Bad Guy” co-creators Ludovica Rampoldi and Davide Serino.

The project will criss-cross through different time periods, including flashbacks to Leone’s childhood. 

It will be set in Rome, New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Cannes, which is where Leone first met Arnon Milchan, who produced “Once Upon a Time in America” and where the epic subsequently premiered to mixed reviews.

Raffaella Leone, who is Leone Film Group’s co-CEO, is producing the “Time in America” origins film in tandem with Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, chief strategy officer of Italy’s EssilorLuxottica and president of Ray-Ban. 

Del Vecchio, who holds a 19% stake in Leone group, will also be in Cannes as part of the “Paper Tiger” delegation.