“Emilia Pérez,” the Spanish-language musical drama starring Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón which scored enthusiastic reviews after its Cannes premiere, is nearing a deal for U.S. and U.K. rights with Netflix.
Sources said the deal, which could also include additional territories, is for approximately $12 million, and there’s still the possibility that the ongoing negotiations could fall apart.
Saldaña stars as Rita, an undervalued lawyer whose firm is more inclined to help criminals than seek justice. She finds an unexpected way out when a feared drug cartel leader Manitas (Gascón) recruits her to aid him in surreptitiously completing a sex change operation to become the woman he’s always wanted to be. Gomez plays his unsuspecting wife. In an exclusive interview with Variety, Audiard described the movie as an “opera libretto in four acts,” as the actors break out into original songs to advance the plot.
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The filmmaker is a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d’Or in 2015 for “Deephan.” His first film, 1994’s “Watch the Men Fall,” was selected for Critics’ Week at Cannes and went on to win three César awards, including best first work. The French filmmaker has had six films in official selection, including “A Prophet,” “Of Rust and Bone,” “The Olympiads” and “Emilia Pérez.”
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The movie has earned near-unanimous praise from critics, with Variety‘s Peter Debruge comparing it to “a rose blooming amid a minefield,” and a “south-of-the-border pop opera about a most unlikely metamorphosis and the personal redemption it awakens in a stone-cold criminal.” In addition to competing for Audiard’s second Palme d’Or, the film is also eligible to win the Queer Palm, which recognizes titles dealing with LGBTQ themes and is award by a jury presided over by Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont.
