Directing twenty films is no small feat. Even by modest budget standards, that means that over a director’s career some rich investor or other has put up nearly $200 million for you to goof around with a camera and a couple of your actor friends (okay maybe it’s not exactly goofing around, but you get the idea.) Of course it goes without saying that few directors ever actually make it into this exclusive club, but one crowd favorite is about to join the ranks with his latest announced production: Pedro Almodóvar.
Yes, the master of camp melodrama, the indefatigable defender of Spain’s social misfits and the unlikely two-time Oscar winner is jumping back into the fray after 2013’s critically panned box office hit, I’m So Excited. In a recent conversation with Britain’s Financial Times, the man from La Mancha unofficially announced that he was moving forward with his new project, titled Silencio, with the shoot starting in April.
While details are scarce, we do know that Pedrito will be returning to the female-centric dramatic roots that brought him so much success in pictures like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother and Volver. That’s not to say, of course, that his forays into other genre territories — such as the 1986 thriller Matador or 2011’s psychological horror flick, The Skin I Live In — haven’t been without their successes. Whatever the mode he is working in, we can certainly expect Almodóvar’s signature blend of post-modern genre mashup, humor, and overt sexuality to be present throughout.
Without divulging too much about the screenplay, Almodóvar did reveal that the film’s title refers to the “the principal element that drives the worst things that happen to the main female protagonist.” On the production side of things, Pedro’s brother and inveterate collaborator, Agustín, recently told Variety that their production company was in the earliest stages of casting, location scouting and budgeting.
There’s a long road ahead, but Almodóvar’s got number 20 in his sights. We’re rootin’ for you, buddy.