Spider Senses Are Tingling... but in Spanish

Almodóvar's latest hasn't even hit Australian screens yet but there are already reports filtering down from the magical land of Blog that Pedro and Agustín have settled on their next project and it looks like it is going to be more Matador than Women On The Verge....

La piel que habito is going to be very loosely based on the French novel Mygale in which a plastic surgeon exacts a terrible revenge on the men who raped his young daughter. Actually Almodóvar claims that only one scene from the book remains intact. That's pretty loose. I suppose that warrants an "inspired by" rather than a "based on".

Penelope Cruz is all but confirmed to star.

And the cogs start a turning...

A few years back Antonio Banderas was harping on about how his next project would see him reteaming with Pedro in a film titled Tarantula. The film, also starring Penelope Cruz, was to deal with a plastic surgeon who exacts a terrible revenge on the rapist of his daughter by locking him in a basement and reassigning his gender only to fall in love with her.

Hmmm, well, Almodóvar has said that La piel que habito will be "immensely tough and complicated, targeted at select audiences, the kind of film that's discomfiting and doesn't tend to win many awards." Sounds like a match to me.

This seemingly recent interview with Antonio has Shrek's pussy saying, "The last communication I had [concerning Tarantula] was through Penelope Cruz, who said, “You’re going to receive some calls from Pedro soon.” Excitement growing...

And to cement my hypothesis, I offer up that mygale is the now defunct genus of large hairy tropical spiders to which tarantulas belong.

I've been hoping that this project would see the light of day and now it seems it will. Almodóvar seems quite adamant that it is going to be very different from his previous work so I am interested to see if the gothic themes and noir source material will win out over Almodóvar's penchant for melodrama and kitsch. I sort of hope they don't but colour me intrigued.

Thanks to Solace In Cinema for the heads up.