Way back in 2017, Amazon picked up the distribution rights to a Lucille Ball biopic directed by Aaron Sorkin and starring Cate Blanchettāwho, at that point, had already been attached to the project for years. At some point, though, Blanchett allowed the project to pass her by like so many chocolates on a conveyer belt, and now Nicole Kidman has signed on to star in the filmānow dubbed Being The Ricardosāalongside Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz. The premise for the movie is that it will follow Ball and Arnaz during one tumultuous week of I Love Lucy production, from a table read on Monday to filming in front of an audience on Friday, all while the two stars āface a crisis that could end their careers and another that could end their marriage.ā So, yes, it will absolutely be the most on-brand thing Aaron Sorkin could possibly do with a Lucille Ball biopic.
With that all established, itās kind of hard to deny that this casting seems a little weird. Both Kidman and Bardem are older than Ball and Arnaz were when I Love Lucy was on, and Bardem in particular doesnāt seem like he carries the same sort of energy that Arnaz had in the I Love Lucy era. Or maybe heās just been sitting on this secret well of spryness for the majority of his career? Weāll have to wait and see, but Deadline (which originally reported this) points out that we might have to wait for a while: Neither Kidman nor Bardem actually have deals in place yet, and Sorkin will still have to deal with the pandemic and its related shutdowns even once those deals happenāassuming they do happen and that we didnāt just blow this whole thing with our Bardem-as-Arnaz skepticism.