ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA Origins Movie Will Explore Sergio Leone’s 15-Year Fight to Make His Gangster Epic

A new movie inspired by the making of Once Upon a Time in America is officially in development, and it sounds like a fascinating deep dive into the obsession, frustration, and determination that fueled one of cinema’s most celebrated gangster films.

Italy’s Leone Film Group is developing an origins film centered on legendary filmmaker Sergio Leone and his long journey to bring Once Upon a Time in America to the screen. The project is being assembled while the company is attending the Cannes Film Festival as a producer on Paper Tiger, the latest film from James Gray.

The untitled movie won’t simply retell the production history of Once Upon a Time in America. Instead, it’s shaping up to be a character-driven story about Leone himself and the relentless pursuit of a dream project that consumed a huge portion of his life.

Raffaella Leone, Sergio Leone’s daughter and co-CEO of Leone Film Group, explained the emotional core of the project while speaking with Variety:

“It’s basically the story of a man who chases a dream for his entire life. Or, at least, who took 15 years to make a movie and didn’t do anything else until he managed to make it. And it’s told with my father’s irony.”

That makes this feel like more than a standard biopic. Leone’s career already reads like movie mythology, and focusing on the exhausting path toward making Once Upon a Time in America could deliver something personal, funny, heartbreaking, and creatively chaotic all at once.

The film will be directed by Italian filmmaking duo Giuseppe Stasi and Giancarlo Fontana, the creative team behind Prime Video’s dark crime series The Bad Guy. They’re also co-writing the screenplay with The Bad Guy creators Ludovica Rampoldi and Davide Serino.

According to the report, the story will jump across multiple timelines and locations, including flashbacks to Leone’s childhood. The film’s settings will span Rome, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Cannes.

The Cannes portions of the story should be especially interesting. That’s where Leone first connected with producer Arnon Milchan, who would later help bring the gangster epic to life. Cannes was also where Once Upon a Time in America premiered in 1984 to mixed reactions before eventually earning its reputation as a masterpiece years later.

Raffaella Leone is producing the project alongside Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, chief strategy officer of EssilorLuxottica and president of Ray-Ban. Del Vecchio also owns a 19% stake in Leone Film Group.

For movie fans, especially those obsessed with classic crime cinema, this sounds like an awesome concept. Once Upon a Time in America already carries this almost mythical legacy around it, and digging into the years of struggle that led to its creation feels like the perfect way to revisit that world from a completely different angle.

If the filmmakers can capture Leone’s personality, ambition, and humor the way Raffaella describes, this could turn into one of the coolest filmmaker-focused projects currently in development.