Titled Strange Way of Life, the film is designed as « a response » to Ang Lee’s feature film. Filming is scheduled for this summer.

In 2015, Pedro Almodovar revealed to the Financial Times that he had come very close to realizing the now cult Secret of Brokeback Mountain. “I was offered Brokeback Mountain but I had a lot of doubts. Thinking about it, I don’t know if I made a mistake or not [by refusing]. I think Ang Lee went as far as he could and I really like his version. But I always imagined it differently and I don’t think I could have done it the way I wanted. They wouldn’t have left me,” he explained.

Seventeen years after the film’s release, the Spanish director will make Strange Way of Life this summer, which he sees as « his answer to Brokeback Mountain, » he told IndieWire on Tuesday (June 28).

In this western, named after a song by fado singer Amalia Rodrigues which will open the film, Ethan Hawke will play a sheriff, and Pedro Pascal a gunslinger. “One of them travels through the desert to find the other. There will be a confrontation between the two, but the story is above all intimate, ”explains Almodovar to IndieWire. Filming should begin at the end of August in the Almeira region of Spain, the land where Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns were filmed.

The production company created by Pedro Almodovar, El Deseo, has revealed that Yves Saint Laurent will be in charge of costume design and will co-produce the film. Strange Way of Life will be the third English-language film directed by the 72-year-old Spaniard after the medium-length La Voix Humaine and A Manual For Cleaning Women, scheduled for 2023.

In both cases, the Spanish director directed Cate Blanchett.