Almodovar and Banderas Re-Team For "Piel"

Pedro Almodovar and Antonio Banderas are teaming up again for the Spanish director's new film La Piel Que Habito twenty-one years after their last collaboration (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!). They have also worked together on Labyrinth of Passion (1982), Matador (1986), Law of Desire (1987), and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988).

According to Variety, Piel will loosely adapt Thierry Jonquet's 1995 novel "Mygale". Almodovar describes it as "a horror story without screams or shocks." Since announcing Piel in 2002, the film has now gone through nine re-writes which can no longer accommodate for such a big star as Penelope Cruz, which was Almodovar's original choice for one of the characters in the film.

"The film will be a terror film, without screams or scares," Almodovar told the Spanish daily El Pais. "It's difficult to define and although it comes close to the terror genre -- something that appeals to me that I've never done -- I won't respect any of its rules. It's the harshest film I've ever written and Banderas' character is brutal." It centers around a plastic surgeon who avenges the brutal rape of his daughter.

La Piel Que Habito will shoot this summer over the course of ten weeks.