Johnny Depp, Al Pacino and Peter O’Toole are among those being tipped to play Salvador Dalí in three rival Hollywood films that are being promoted at the Cannes Film Festival.

Negotiations are under way to cast a major star as the Surrealist whose showmanship – he once gave a lecture dressed in a diver’s suit – equalled his technical genius.

Asked why so many films were being made 18 years after the artist’s death, Peter Rawley, producer of Dalí, said that film-makers somehow “pick up on the vibe”. Three Dalí films is nothing, though: “At one stage, we counted up to nine.”

Getting to the big screen first is an advantage, producers acknowledge. The second of the recent Truman Capote bio-pics was eclipsed by the first. At the moment there are two features in production about Dylan Thomas.

A decade ago, Picasso’s family were so outraged by the way he was depicted in Merchant-Ivory’s Surviving Picasso that they refused to let his works be reproduced on screen. Yesterday Dalí’s estate told The Times that it would allow the Dalí films to show his work if they were “respectful” to him.

A spokeswoman said that she was aware of the three productions – and of another being made in Central Europe. “We are a bit surprised about this,” she said, suggesting that the centenary of Dalí’s birth in 2004 may perhaps have got film-makers thinking.

Dalí, a Spaniard who became a leading figure in the interwar Paris-based Surrealist movement, created a dreamworld in which prosaic objects, painted with meticulous realism, are distorted or metamorphosed.

He enjoyed being the centre of attention. “Every morning upon awakening,” he wrote, “I experience a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dalí, and I ask myself, wonderstruck, what prodigious thing will he do today, this Salvador Dalí?”

In the 1940s he went to Hollywood to work with Hitchcock, creating the dream sequence in Spellbound, and collaborated with Walt Disney. In the 1920s and 1930s, with his fellow Surrealist Luis Buñuel, he made Un Chien Andalou and L’Âge d’Or.

Mr Rawley, a British-born Hollywood producer, said: “From what we can tell, the other films are more about Dalí’s wife and art-dealers. Ours is about his life.” It is to be shot in Barcelona and Prague. David Permut is producing Goodbye Dalí, with locations in Spain and New York. The screen-play by Yaniv Raz and Allan Rich is based on the friendship of Rich, when he was a young art-dealer, with Dalí. Mr Permut said: “My philosophy has always been that people will come if you make a good movie.”

Reports suggest that Pacino is being linked to Dalí & I: The Surreal Story, to be directed by Andrew Niccol. It will tell of the painter’s relationship with the art-dealer Stan Lauryssen, on whose autobiography it is based.

In London, Tate Modern is next month to open an exhibition, Dalí & Film, exploring the role of cinema in Dali’s art, for which The Times is the media partner. An unfinished film that he made with Disney is to receive its British premiere as part of the show.

–– Dalí & Film is at Tate Modern from June 1 until September 9.

Which are the ones to watch?

Peter O’Toole

Goodbye Dalí – Producer David Permut has made hits including Dragnet with Tom Hank. Peter O’Toole tipped

Johnny Depp

Dalí – Script by director Philippe Mora. Ready to shoot as soon as the cast is in place. Possibly Johnny Depp to star null

Al Pacino

Dalí & I – Director Andrew Niccol has a good chance of casting Al Pacino as they worked together on Simone

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