Legendary director Joe Wright, who is best known for his work on Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Atonement (2007), will soon be back on our screen with a new project. This time he is going to take audiences back in time to fascist-Italy with a new original Sky TV show: M. Son of the Century.
The show is based on a novel of the same name, written in 2018 by Antonio Scurati. M. Son of the Century will follow Benito Mussolini (Luca Marinelli) as his political career progresses from founding the Italian fascist organisation Fasci Italiani in 1919 to his rise to power. The Sky show will also include the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti (Gaetano Bruno), an Italian socialist politician, in 1924, which represents one of the most pivotal moments of the history of the Fascist Party and the country overall.
Most of the trailer for M. Son of the Century focuses on none other than Benito Mussolini himself, played in the series by Marinelli, an Italian actor. He is best known to international audiences for having played Andrea in Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (2013) and the titular character in Martin Eden (2019) by Pietro Marcello. As the trailer begins Mussolini addresses a crowd and introduces himself with his full name, Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea, and announcing that his “time has come.”
The eight-episode series will premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in September and will later air on Sky Atlantic in 2025. While having Joe Wright as the director might be enough to ensure the success of M. Son of the Century, it is also worth mentioning that the series will be produced by Lorenzo Mieli. The Italian producer has previously worked on a number of important releases for Italian directors, such as Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All (2022), Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God (2020), and for international cinema with Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla in 2023.
Words by Coltilde Chinnici
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