Sony’s new Cleopatra movie may have more in common with House of Cards than the 1963 film about the Egyptian queen starring Elizabeth Taylor.
Screenwriter David Scarpa, the scribe behind this year’s All the Money in the World, is writing the screenplay and says he wants the film to be a ‘dirty, bloody’ political thriller as opposed to the usual stifling period piece.
‘With Cleopatra … instead of doing the movie as the prestige picture — the three-hour, lots of pageantry, people with fans and English accents and all that stuff — [we] really treat it as a political thriller.
Screenwriter David Scarpa is working on a script for a new film about Cleopatra. He says he wants to make the film a ‘dirty, bloody’ political thriller told from a woman’s perspective. Above, a still from the 1963 film about the Egyptian queen starring Elizabeth Taylor
‘Dirty, bloody, lots of people swearing and having sex and all of that other stuff and just treat it as a two-hour, lean, mean political thriller, full of assassinations, etc. Just going the opposite direction from the way we think that movie is going to go,’ he told The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie has been in the works since Stacy Schiff’s biography on the female Pharoah was released seven years ago.
The book became a best seller for its feminist retelling of Cleopatra’s life story.
Scarpa is clearly inspired by the spirit of the book, and says he wants to throw out the misogynistic myths that have plagued Cleopatra’s legend over the years.
Several directors have been attached to the project over the years, but it now looks like Denis Villeneuve (right) will helm the ship. Scarpa is pictured on the left
‘There have been so many narratives of Cleopatra that have all been framed through the eyes of men. The entire history of that period is framed through the eyes of men, specifically Roman men.
‘And the idea was we’re gonna approach it through her point of view. We’re going to assume that the narratives that have been created by the Roman writers of the time were slanted, and we’re going to unskew them. So it gave us an opportunity to approach history in a radical way as well,’ he told Collider.
Directors such as James Cameron, Paul Greengrass and Ang Lee were attached to the film over the years but eventually moved onto other projects.
The film, being produced by Sony, is based on Stacy Schiff’s biography of the Egyptian queen
Most recently, director Denis Villeneuve was in talks to take over the movie. He recently won acclaim for the toned-down alien film Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049.
Because Villeneuve has been busy promoting Blade Runner, Scarpa says he hasn’t had a lot of time to talk to him about the project yet.
‘Basically Denis Villeneuve has expressed an interest in directing the movie. I haven’t talked a lot to him—he was off doing Blade Runner and press for Blade Runner—so I have honestly very little knowledge into what his point of view on the movie is, and I’m sure he’s got one. But I’m interested to see what happens,’ he said.
It’s still unclear who will play the lead part. When director David Fincher was in talks to direct, Angelina Jolie expressed interest in playing Cleopatra, according to emails released in the 2014 Sony hack.
But Scott Rudin, one of the producer behind the project, was less than enthused.
In one of the emails, he called Jolie a ‘minimally talented spoiled brat’.