Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are currently in talks to star as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz respectively. According to Deadline, the Oscar winners will play the duo behind I Love Lucy during a particularly troublesome production week. Aaron Sorkin, who recently released Netflix’s Trial of the Chicago 7, is writing and directing. Amazon Studios will produce the film, titled Being the Riccardos. Escape Artists’ Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, and Steve Tisch will also produce.
While the Deadline article doesn’t offer much on plot information, it does paint a picture as to what type of movie it will be. It takes place during a rough production week for I Love Lucy. Lucille and Desi will face one crisis that could end their careers and another that could end their marriage. The behind-the-scenes history of I Love Lucy gives us additional details. While the sitcom is indeed iconic and beloved, Ball and Arnaz’s marriage was apparently tumultuous. The show ran from 1951 – 1957. The couple followed it with The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, which ran through 1960. And right after the filming of the final episode, Ball filed for divorce.
Kidman, Bardem, and Sorkin
Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are both renowned for their previous work. Kidman has been working steadily for decades. She won an Oscar for 2002’s The Hours, a Golden Globe for her work on HBO’s Big Little Lies, and showed she can take on superhero fare with the DCEU’s Aquaman. Bardem won an Oscar for 2007’s No Country for Old Men, played one of the best Bond villains in recent memory in Skyfall, and will next appear in Dune.
As for the man behind the camera, Aaron Sorkin is more than accomplished. He won several Emmys for his writing on The West Wing. He also won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his screenplay for The Social Network. If talks for Kidman and Bardem go through, we’ll have quite an interesting take on I Love Lucy.
