If there’s one thing we absolutely don’t need, it’s another Cleopatra movie. So of course Columbia Pictures is making one. Come on, if Troy proved anything it’s that people have had it with the sword and sandal epic. This is worse than that, this is the most cliché sword and sandal epic there is. The 1963 version was an overblown symbol of big budget decadence and failure. If anyone remembers it, it’s only because Elizabeth Taylor was in it. In Bill Condon’s upcoming movie Dreamgirls, the idea of a Cleopatra movie is used as a horrible joke, career suicide. That probably means Columbia will make two.
For now there’s only one in the works. Variety says they have picked up the rights to a 10-page proposal which they’ve hired Scott Rudin to turn into a movie. The idea is supposed to be a “new take” on Cleo which will “dispel the movie myths that focused on pageantry and Cleopatra's skills as a seductress”. Instead, she’ll be a gritty look at her as a military tactician lusting for power. It’ll be the Batman Begins of Cleopatra movies.
At least there’s been some time since anyone seriously touched the Cleopatra subject. Taking old ideas and making them gritty and edgy seems to be thing these days, if it worked for James Bond and Batman why not Cleopatra.
