May 12, 2026 1:39am PT

‘Once Upon a Time in America’ Origins Movie in the Works From ‘Paper Tiger’ Producer Leone Film Group (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli

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Nick Vivarelli

International Correspondent

@NickVivarelli

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Italy’s Leone Film Group — which is in Cannes as a producer of James Grey’s competition entry “Paper Tiger” — is set to make an ambitious origins movie about Sergio Leone’s quest to shoot “Once Upon a Time in America,” the gangster epic that premiered at Cannes in 1984 and is now considered a masterpiece.

“It’s basically the story of a man who chases a dream for his entire life,” Raffaella Leone, who is Sergio Leone’s daughter, told Variety. “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.”

'Once Upon a Time in America' Origins Movie in the Works From 'Paper Tiger' Producer Leone Film Group (EXCLUSIVE)