Gael García Bernal has reunited again with the Zorro film he’s occasionally been attached to for years, Deadline reported Monday. His return marks the latest development in a saga as epic as any Zorro serial—and twice as long. García Bernal was originally cast as Zorro in 2012, when Fox was developing the project under the title Zorro Reborn as a post-apocalyptic story set in a desert wasteland. That version of the film was written by Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy and was supposed to be the directorial debut of special effects artist Rpin Suwannath when it was originally announced back in 2011. But shortly after García Bernal was cast, Fox ditched Suwannath and attached Peruvian director Ricardo de Montreuil. De Montreuil went on to produce a proof-of-concept film with Jason Day playing Zorro instead of García Bernal (and Jon Voight doing voice work). That test film leaked in 2013:
At some point, Fox lost interest—at least one source says it wasn’t that into the idea of García Bernal playing Zorro—and the project disappeared. That is, until last August, when producer Mark Amin announced Zorro Reborn had been reborn without Fox. Despite having no director or star attached, Amin planned to shoot in the Dominican Republic in 2016. Jonás Cuarón, son of Academy Award–winning director Alfonso Cuarón, signed on to direct in February and quickly decided to throw out the screenplay for Zorro Reborn entirely. Instead, his version, titled Z, takes place in the not-so-distant pre-apocalypse future. Cuarón, it not-so-coincidentally happened, had recently directed García Bernal in his film Desierto. The stage was finally set to cast Gael García Bernal again, which happened Monday. Whether García Bernal has been recast in the same film or a different film is a Hollywood version of the Ship of Theseus. One thing’s certain, though: He really wants to play Zorro.
