Grigori Efimovich Rasputin: mystic, healer, political mischief-maker, charlatan. He was a cat that was really gone. It was a shame how he carried on. He's been played onscreen by Christopher Lee, Tom Baker, Alan Rickman and Karel Roden (among others). And according to Variety, Rasputin is en route to the movies again, in two separate projects: one written and directed by Roselyne Bosch, and one starring Gerard Depardieu.
Both films seem focused on the final two years of Rasputin's life: the time from 1914-1916 in which he was inveigled in the St Petersburg court, manipulating Tsaritsa Alexandra, and heading towards his complicated and spectacular murder (he was poisoned, beaten, shot, strangled, castrated and drowned, in that order. They wanted to be really sure).
Bosch was the writer of 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Ridley Scott's unloved 1992 epic in which Depardieu played Christopher Columbus. Her English-language Rasputin: The Healer will be produced by Alain Goldman (also behind 1492) and will "capture the complexity of Rasputin's character". The plan is that it'll be ready for release in the autumn of 2011.
The Depardieu version, meanwhile, is a $12m French/Russian-language co-production for TV, titled Raspoutine. The mad monk is a role that Depardieu has apparently coveted for years. Casting is underway, and the shoot is pencilled in for December in Moscow and St Petersburg.
So it's Rasputin vs Rasputin. Which will emerge victorious? Who will Bosch choose to challenge Depardieu? And will either contender match Lee's awesomely bonkers performance in the Hammer Film?