'Art films are difficult to get off the ground': Pacino's fight to make his Modigliani movie

He has become one of Hollywood's biggest stars after making his name in The Godfather, a gangster classic from 1972.

- Dalya Alberge

He has become one of Hollywood's biggest stars after making his name in The Godfather, a gangster classic from 1972.

Yet, despite his fame and Oscar recognition, Al Pacino struggled for 30 years to get a movie made about one of the 20th century's greatest artists because such films are "always difficult to get off the ground".

He refused to give up on a drama about Amedeo Modigliani, a tortured genius who faced repeated rejection before his death in 1920 from tubercular meningitis, aged 35. The film, Modigliani - Three Days on the Wing of Madness, is directed by Johnny Depp and will be released in cinemas next month.

The Italian painter-sculptor had struggled to sell his work, while battling poverty and an addiction to drink and drugs. Yet his elongated portraits and sensual nudes now command huge prices. His Reclining Nude of 1917-18 sold for a record $170m (£113m) in New York in 2015.

Pacino said of Modigliani: "There is something in this story that is not just identifiable with the artist. There is that connection to rejection in all of us, so it gives audiences something they can relate to."