ROME
Variety
Nick Vivarelli
International Correspondent
@NickVivarelli
ROME – Italy’s Leone Film Group has acquired rights to a series of books by Italian investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi to develop an English-language TV series based on the so-called Vatileaks scandals that recently exposed rampant corruption and mismanagement at the Vatican.
The books by Nuzzi include “His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI,” based on documents leaked by Pope Benedict’s butler that some say helped precipitate Benedict’s historic resignation, and “Merchants in the Temple,” also based on confidential documents, which describes more recent episodes of cronyism, greed, and moral malaise and the internal attempts to sabotage Pope Francis’ crackdown.
Nuzzi’s reporting has led to the arrests of several of his sources by Vatican authorities. He was put on trial by a Vatican court in the highly publicized “Vatileaks 2” trial, but was acquitted.
“The TV series will take its cue from the events that led to the Vatileaks scandals,” said Raffaella Leone, managing director of Leone Film Group. “The idea is to start with ‘Merchants in the Temple,’ which is about a pool of experts hired by the Vatican to conduct internal investigations and audits for the pope.”
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