Italian star Luca Marinelli (The old guard, Eight mountains, Martin Eden) has signed on to play Benito Mussolini in the M. The Son of the Centurythe new 8 part series of Redemption director Joe Wright, which follows the fascist leader’s rise to power.
The series, commissioned as a Sky Original, is based on Antonio Scurati’s bestseller. The series will cover the period from the founding of the Italian Fascist Party in 1919 to 1925, just before Mussolini seized power in Italy, when he delivered his infamous speech in parliament following the assassination of Socialist MP Giacomo Matteo. Like the novel, the series aims to tell the story of a country that surrendered to dictatorship and the story of a man who manages to rise from the ashes again and again.
Marinelli, who just wrapped filming on the Netflix sequel The old guardwill start filming on M. over the next few weeks. The series will be filmed at Rome’s legendary Cinecittà Studios over the next few weeks.
“For a great project like M., and for such a challenging role as Mussolini, we could only think of an extraordinary and eclectic talent like Luca Marinelli,” said Nils Hartmann, Executive Vice President of Sky Studios for Italy and Germany. “There aren’t many actors like him in Italy or the world, and we’ve been courting him for a long time and now we’re delighted to have him in this new Sky Studios production.”
M. The Son of the Century is produced by Sky Studios and Lorenzo Mielli for The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle company, in association with Pathé. In Italy the book written by Scurati was published by Bompiani.
Written by Stefano Bisses (Gomorrah, The new pope) and Davide Serino (1992), the series will air exclusively on Sky and will air on Sky NOW in all Sky European markets: UK, Ireland, Italy and German-speaking Europe. Fremantle handles international sales for the series.