Luke Evans' star is certainly rising. Following his role as Apollo in Clash of the Titans, he's signed up for Stephen Frears' Tamara Drew and Paul WS Anderson's The Three Musketeers (as Athos), and according to The Hollywood Reporter it now looks like he's set to play Venetian virtuoso violinist Vivaldi.
He'll be starring alongside Jessica Biel as Anna Tessieri Giro, the "forbidden romance" and muse that allegedly inspired Vivaldi's composing The Four Seasons concertos.
There's a certain amount of artistic licence at play here, in that most scholars seem to believe Vivaldi's own vehement denial of any hanky panky between himself and Giro. The pair were certainly close collaborators, and Giro (along with her sister) became part of Vivaldi's entourage on his far-and-wide travels, but there's no real evidence to suggest Giro was anything more than Vivaldi's favourite prima donna.
Still, this won't be the first time we've seen a composer given a fictional movie life. Amadeus invented the deadly animosity between Mozart and Salieri, and Immortal Beloved's revealing of Beethoven's secret love was entirely speculative (suffice to say nobody in academia gives credence to Bernard Rose's claim that he solved the mystery). If Vivaldi is half as good as either of those, it should be one to watch out for.
The project is written by Kevin Lund and TJ Scott, and is not the same one that Boris Damast has been trying to get going for years. Raffaella De Laurentiis is producing and Patricia Riggen (Under the Same Moon) will direct, all assuming the package comes together at Cannes as planned...