Bibliofemme News
|
  |
10/08/2004
Greenlight for 'Love in the Time of Cholera' film
After denying Hollywood for years, Gabriel García Márquez has agreed to sell the rights to his 1985 novel
Unswerving defender of Fidel Castro and Latin American literary patriarch he may be, but Gabriel García Márquez appears to have finally succumbed to Hollywood's call, signing over the film rights to Love in the Time of Cholera.
The Los Angeles production company Stone Village Pictures is reportedly paying the Colombian Nobel laureate between one and three million dollars to make a movie of what producer Scot Steindorff recently termed "the best love story ever told, next to Romeo and Juliet".
Despite selling millions of books around the globe, the 76-year-old novelist, who is battling with cancer, is said to be worried about the financial future of his lifetime partner Mercedes and their two sons Gonzalo and Rodrigo.
García Márquez, who has lived in Mexico most of the time since 1961, reportedly sank substantial sums into a news magazine called Cambio that he started in Colombia before launching a Mexican version with mixed results.
Born in Colombia in 1928, García Márquez spent years as a struggling journalist before making his name crafting fantastic tales told with breathtaking naturalness, often inspired by the lives of his own family and the turbulent history of his native country and continent.
He shot to international literary fame with his 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, loosely based on the experiences of his own grandparents. In his recent autobiography Bill Clinton described the book as "the greatest novel in any language since William Faulkner died".
Love in the Time of Cholera, published in 1985, follows the struggles of Florentina Ariza to win the heart of Fermina Daza. It takes the hero 51 years, nine months and four days, but he wins her in the end.
Up to now García Márquez has always resisted the temptation to allow high-budget English language films of his work. The most commercial adaptation of his books to hit the screen so far was the 1987 Italian version of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, directed by Francesco Rosi and starring Rupert Everett.
Details of who may direct or star in the movie have yet to be released, although the names of Nicole Kidman and Jude Law are already circulating. Steindorff himself has reportedly hinted that García Márquez could be persuaded to write the screenplay.
<- back to the news
