AL PACINO TO PLAY DALI IN NEW MOVIE

The 68-year-old will star alongside Irish actor Cillian Murphy who plays Stan Lauryssens, a Belgian art dealer specialising in selling only Dali works.

Based on Lauryssens’ book Dali & I, filming has already begun on the movie, which promises to reveal the murky behind-the-scenes activities of the art world where commerce and conspiracy go hand in hand.

Dali was famed for his melting pocket watches in such works as The Persistence Of Memory.

With his waxed moustache, long hair and out-landish behaviour, he also became a byword for eccentricity.

He often wore coat, stockings and knee breeches in the style of a 19th century English aesthete, prompting ridicule from critics who felt such posing distracted people from his work.

Salvador Dali was famed for his eccentricity

Pacino’s interpretation of the artist, however, will not be the only one to hit the big screen.

Antonio Banderas is to play the artist in a biopic called Dali with Catherine Zeta-Jones as his wife Gala.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter and Twilight star Robert Pattinson has just completed filming Little Ashes, in which he plays the young Dali.