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Tony-award winning actor Matthew Broderick (“Odd Couple,” “The Producers”) is in a “battle royale” with Argentinian film director Lucia Puenzo (“XXY”) over the film rights to “The Man Who Outshone the Sun King,” the soon-to-be-released biography of Nicholas Fouquet, prime minister to Louis the Fourteenth in France’s 17th century Court of the Sun King.
Broderick has been seen most recently as an actor in the films “Then She Found Me” and “Finding Amanda.” “Judging from those two film titles, I’m obviously looking for something,” he jokes dryly. “And the something that I am seeking just might be this book and a chance to both act in and direct a film made from it.”
Broderick says the film would co-star Nathan Lane as the Muskateer D’Artagnan, Fouquet’s lifelong friend; Anna Paquin as Marie Antoinette; and Kristin Chenoweth cast as the visiting Queen of Spain.
“The details of Fouquet’s life are irresistibly dramatic,” says Broderick. “Fouquet’s eye for beauty, his fatal ambition, the battle of wills with his nemesis Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the Sun King, his terrible downfall – everything about his life seems to have an epic, timeless quality.”
And Fouquet also, notes Broderick, threw the largest and most dramatic party of the 17th century – complete with a play commissioned from Moliere written specifically for the occasion.
Although Fouquet’s was one of the most tragic careers in French history, Broderick says he is looking at more of a “Fouquet-lite” for the film.
“This would be more of an ‘Odd Couple Meets Versailles’ approach,” Broderick says, adding that he has long been a fan of the “Herbie” series. “There’s always been a market for anything Nathan and I do together.”
Filming of the Broderick film would take place in both France and the U.S. “I’d love to be able to say we’ll be filming Fouquet in Phuket,” concludes Broderick. “Which is a delightful little town in Thailand. But while that would be extremely fun to say – and do! – it just wouldn’t be true.”
By contrast, Puenzo’s version of “The Man Who Outshone the Sun King” would use the life of Fouquet to explore the psychological fallout that alternative sexualities had in the court of Louis the Fourteenth.
Puenzo has gained worldwide fame for her film “XXY,” which tells the story of a 15-year-old intersex person, Alex (Efron), who has both male and female genitals, but is living as a girl and been using medicines to suppress male features such as a beard and to avoid reduction of size of her breasts.
“XXY” -- recently banned by the government of South Africa -- has received widespread critical acclaim, winning the Critics' Week grand prize at the 2007 Cannes film festival, as well as the ACID/CCAS Support Award. It was nominated for eight awards at the 2008 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards, and was nominated or won awards at a number of other foreign film festivals.
According to reports, Stephen Walker (“Young@Heart”) dropped out of the bidding for the film rights earlier this month.
Posted September 17th, 2008 by Joan Gachet
