Italian Producer Luca Barbareschi Unveils Bio-Series Devoted To Bank Of America Founder A.P. Giannini

Italian-Uruguayan producer and actor Luca Barbareschi is developing a six-part series about the life of Bank of America founder and early Hollywood financier Amadeo Peter Giannini.

Barbareschi told Italian news agency Ansa that he is producing the series under the banner of his Rome-based Eliseo Fiction banner. He said state broadcaster Rai had recently boarded the project and that talks were underway with a U.S. partner.

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Cast has yet to be set but Barbareschi said the aim was to make a series with international appeal. The series will be shot in Italy and the U.S., with a tentative start date of end 2023, start 2024.

In the meantime, Barbareschi is finishing post-production on Roman Polanski’s upcoming black comedy The Palace. Barbareschi is the lead producer on the feature having taken co-producer credits on Polanski’s last film An Officer And A Spy. He revealed that Italian distributor 01 was planning a mid-January 2023 release in Italy.

Born in San Jose, California in 1870 to Italian parents hailing from Genoa, Giannini made his fortune in the wholesale produce business and then moved into finance, working initially with the Italian immigrant community.

From 1909 onwards he acquired banks across California, which he grouped under the banner of the Bank of Italy. It soon grew beyond the state and was renamed Bank of America in 1930.

Giannini was also an early Hollywood financier, providing loans for the launch of Columbia Pictures in 1920, bailing out Walt Disney when Snow White ran over budget and also getting behind films like Gone With The Wind, King Kong and  It’s A Wonderful Life.

Barbareschi said he first became interested in the pioneering banker while doing research for his 2013 TV movie Adriano Olivetti: La Forza Di Un Sogno, which led him to explore other iconic figures in the history of industry and finance.

He then approached the California-based A.P. Giannini Foundation, which granted him the rights to tell the story.

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