Italian director Gabriele Muccino is to produce a two-part TV movie on Italian opera legend Luciano Pavarotti, one of Muccino's co-producers said Tuesday. Pavarotti's widow Nicoletta Mantovani is working with screenwriter Ivana Massetti to make sure the tale of Big Luciano's rise from humble beginnings to operatic superstardom is as accurate as possible, said Fabrizio Danvito, a co-owner of Muccino's production company Indiana Production. But Danvito stressed that the story of the baker's son who became the best-known tenor in the world "won't be a documentary". "The writers have already contacted his relatives. It will be a real TV movie, telling the inside story. We might put some concert footage in but it won't be anything like a documentary," he said.

Provisionally entitled Luciano Pavarotti - The True Story or perhaps Big Luciano, the film will span Pavarotti's early years in Modena, his rise through the opera world, sometimes stormy personal life and his consecration as one of the greatest tenors in history and one of Italy's biggest personalities, known as much for his charity work as his sell-out concerts. It will also show the global outpouring of grief at his death at 71 in September 2007. Shooting is set to get under way later this year and the two-parter will be shown on Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset network while also bidding for an international market. The film hasn't been cast yet and Muccino is still looking for the right director, Danvito said. Muccino has just finished Baciami Ancora (Kiss Me Again), the long-awaited follow-up to his 2001 break-out film L'Ultimo Bacio (The Last Kiss) which impressed Will Smith so much he picked the young director for his Pursuit of Happyness in 2006 and Seven Pounds two years later. The 42-year-old Rome native is the only Italian director to have broken into Hollywood in recent years.