Raffaella Leone frames this as a triumphant tribute to her father's artistic perseverance — 'the story of a man who chases a dream for his entire life.' The family is positioning the project as a passion play about creative vision triumphing over Hollywood obstruction.
Insiders note that Sergio Leone literally put his entire career on hold for 15 years waiting to make this film. He turned down other projects, risked financial ruin, and reportedly clashed with multiple studios before Arnon Milchan stepped in. This wasn't just artistic dedication — it was a high-stakes gamble.
'Once Upon a Time in America' premiered at Cannes in 1984 to mixed reviews but is now considered a masterpiece. Raffaella confirmed her father 'took 15 years to make a movie and didn't do anything else until he managed to make it.' The film will be set across Rome, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Cannes — where Leone first met producer Arnon Milchan.
This origins film finally pulls back the curtain on one of cinema's most obsessive creative journeys. If Raffaella and her team nail it, audiences might finally understand just how close Hollywood came to losing this masterpiece entirely.
Italy's Leone Film Group is bringing an ambitious origins story to screens — and this time, they're digging into the legendary director's own battle to bring his gangster epic to life. The company, currently in Cannes as a producer of James Grey's competition entry "Paper Tiger," has announced a film about Sergio Leone's 15-year odyssey to make "Once Upon a Time in America." This isn't just any making-of documentary — it's a fully realized dramatic feature that will span multiple continents and decades.
Raffaella Leone, Sergio's daughter and co-CEO of Leone Film Group, gave Variety an inside look at why this story needed telling. 'It's basically the story of a man who chases a dream for his entire life,' she said. That quote carries serious weight when you consider her father literally put his entire career on hold until he could get this project made.
Fifteen years of nothing else — no other films, no compromises, just relentless pursuit of one vision. 'And it's told with my father's irony,' Raffaella added, promising the tone won't be reverent hagiography but something sharper and more revealing. The untitled origins film will be directed by Italian duo Giuseppe Stasi and Giancarlo Fontana, who broke out with Prime Video's dark comic crime series "The Bad Guy." They'll be writing alongside "The Bad Guy" scribe Ludovica Rampoldi.
The production is being billed as a multi-period epic that crisscrosses through Rome (where Sergio grew up), New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Cannes — the very city where everything changed when Leone first met Arnon Milchan, who would eventually produce "Once Upon a Time in America." That's a crucial detail: this isn't just about artistic struggle; it's about a fateful encounter that made the whole thing possible. Raffaella is producing alongside Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, chief strategy officer of Italy's EssilorLuxottica and president of Ray-Ban.
Del Vecchio holds a 19% stake in Leone Film Group and will be present in Cannes as part of the "Paper Tiger" delegation — which suggests this origins project has serious financial muscle behind it. The original "Once Upon a Time in America" premiered at Cannes in 1984, where it initially received mixed reviews before eventually being recognized as a masterpiece. Now, nearly four decades later, we're finally getting the story of how impossibly close audiences came to never seeing it at all.
Beyond this origins film, Leone Film Group has several other projects cooking. "Bad Boy's Girl," a film adaptation of Blair Holde's Wattpad saga with over 200 million readers on the platform, is currently in post-production and will be shopped in Cannes. Meanwhile, Penelope Cruz remains attached to star in the English-language "Days of Abandonment" adaptation of Elena Ferrante's novel — though director Isabel Coixet has exited and a replacement is being sought for an early 2027 shoot. They're also developing an English remake of Paolo Genovese's Italian comedy "Madly," which grossed over $20 million domestically.
