Gina Rodriguez to Star In & Executive Produce TV Adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s Classic Film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”

Gina Rodriguez is on the verge of a breakdown

Apple has put in development a television series adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s classic 1988 black comedy Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, with the 37-year-old Puerto Rican Golden Globe winning actress and former Jane The Virgin star set to star in and executive produce the series.

Gina RodriguezThe project hails from Almodovar’s El Deseo banner, Rodiguez’s I Can and I Will Productions, 3Pas Studios and Lionsgate Television. Noelle Valdivia will pen the series adaptation.

Rodriguez will play Pepa in the potential series, the role played by Carmen Maura in the film, which would feature a mix of English and Spanish, sources tell Deadline.

Almodovar will executive produce for El Deseo, along with Rodriguez and Molly Breeskin for Rodriguez’s I Can and I Will Productions. 3Pas Studios’ Eugenio Derbez and Ben Odell will also executive produce, Sonia Gambaro will co-produce.

The series is produced by Lionsgate Television, where Derbez is under an overall deal.

The 1988 film, starring Maura and Antonio Banderas, brought Almodóvar widespread international attention following its debut at the 45th International Venice Film Festival. It received a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination and won five Goya Awards including Best Film and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Maura.

Almodóvar to Receive the WGA West’s Jean Renoir Award

Pedro Almodóvar is the write man on top…

The 65-year-old Spanish filmmaker, who earned France’s Prix Lumiere in October for his lifetime of filmmaking achievements, will be feted as this year’s recipient of the Writers Guild of America West’s Jean Renoir Award, which celebrates an international writer who has advanced the literature of motion pictures and made outstanding contributions to the profession of screenwriting.

Pedro Almodovar

Almodóvar has written, directed, and produced more than 20 feature films over the last three decades and won the Original Screenplay Academy Award for 2002’s Talk To Her, for which he also received an Oscar nod for best director.

His other films include Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, Volver, Bad Education, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels, Kika, The Flower Of My Secret, Live Flesh and All About My Mother.

His most recent film was the 2013 comedy I’m So Excited, and he’s currently prepping his next film, Silencio.

“Almodóvar – the first name is almost unnecessary – is a genius, is a flower, is a guiding light: the last, best son of Buñuel and so much more than that,” said WGA West VP Howard Rodman in announcing the honor. “His screenplays, which he directs with passion and fine care, have taught us about the exteriors of his native land and the interiors of our own hearts.”

Almo will receive his special prize at the WGAW’s Awards ceremony on February 14.

Banderas to Receive Honorary Goya Award for His “Stellar Career”

Antonio Banderas has earned an extra special prize…

The Spanish Film Academy will honor the 54-year-old Spanish actor with an honorary Goya Award for the organization calls a “stellar career on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Antonio Banderas

The academy’s board of directors unanimously voted to honor Banderas for having “developed a versatile trajectory as an actor, have shown his own point of view as a director and having immersed himself in the role of producer to support national values.”

Calling him a hometown-Malaga boy “without borders,” the academy applauded his career punctuated by “risks and commitment.”

Banderas rose to acclaim in some of the most exemplary roles in Pedro Almodovar’s earlier works like Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, Labyrinth of Passion, Matador, Law of Desire and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

But he also forged a successful career in Hollywood with films like Zorro, Shrek, Philadelphia, Desperados and Interview with a Vampire.

Banderas, who has directed the films Crazy in Alabama and Summer Rain, recently returned to Spain with his latest Spanish project, the apocalyptic science fiction Automata, which he presented at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Banderas is currently filming Hugh Hudson’s The Master of Altamira alongside Rupert Everett and Golshifteh Farahani.

Banderas’ special presentation will take place next February at Spain’s premiere film gala in Madrid.

Almodovar Receives France’s Prix Lumiere for His Lifetime Filmmaking Achievements

Pedro Almodóvar is beloved in France… And he has the prize to prove it!

The 65-year-old Spanish filmmaker has received the country’s Prix Lumiere for his lifetime filmmaking career.

Pedro Almodovar

Almodóvar was overcome by emotion during the tribute ceremony over the weekend, which was attended by members of the French film industry, as well as some of the actresses closest to him like Marisa Paredes, Rossy de Palma and Elena Anaya.

The ceremony ended with the 3,000 attendees packed into the Lyon Congress Center showing their devotion to the director, and at one point singing and dancing to “Resistire” by the Duo Dinamico.

Almodóvar closed the night’s moving festivities, which went on for more than two and a half hours, with a speech that, he said, he had prepared as if it were for a Nobel Prize and which he dedicated entirely to his mother.

Almodóvar, known for such films as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother and Talk to Her, said that his use of “explosive and saturated” colors is his act of revenge for the more than 30 years his mother spent in the “imposed” black of mourning.

Among the film icons who came to honor him were Isabella Rossellini, Paolo Sorrentino, Berenice Bejo and Keanu Reeves.

French actress Juliette Binoche presented him with the prize while shouting “Merci!” which recalled Penelope Cruz’s famous cry of “Peeeedro!” when she announced that the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film went to All About My Mother in 2000.

The prize offered by the Lumiere Institute has paid tribute every year since 2009 to an international film personality. Previous recipients include Clint Eastwood, Milos Forman, Gerard Depardieu, Ken Loach and Quentin Tarantino.

The next day, on Saturday, Almodovar announced that he has begun pre-production for his next film and that on Monday he will begin finding locations for the shoot, but specified it will take place “in various points around Spain’s geography, as well as in Madrid.”

“About the rest, the actors and other details, we’ll have time to talk about that in the coming months,” Almodovar said, after confessing that his visit to the Lumiere Festival has been a “delightful pause” in his new moviemaking project.

Almodovar’s Next Project to Feature Familiar Faces…

Pedro Almodovar‘s next film could be considered an all-stars project…

The 62-year-old Spanish director’s upcoming film will feature actors and actresses from some of his most noted films.

Pedro Almodovar

Almodovar’s Amantes Pasajeros (Standby Lovers) will feature Volver’s Lola Duenas, Talk to Her’s Javier Camara and All About My Mother’s Cecilia Roth in a “choral” cast.

They’ll work alongside well-known Spanish comedians Carlos Areces and Raul Arevalo and Mexican actor Jose Maria Yazpik, according to the film’s producer Agustin Almodovar.

The Almodovars are expected to start shooting Amantes Pasajeros this summer in  Madrid. The film will be a “pure comedy,” in the tradition of some of Almodovar’s old school classics like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, harkening back to the films “we did back in the ’80s,” says Augustin. Rumors are swirling around the film indicate it is set on a plane and focuses on the relationships of passengers.

Almodovar’s production outfit El Deseo said it will look to release the film in the spring of 2013 in as many territories as possible at the same time “to avoid piracy.”