I, Cladius is bought for $2 million

There's not really enough time here to talk about "The Epic That Never Was", so I will be brief. As long ago as 1937, movie producers saw Robert Graves' historical Roman novel I, Claudius as being potentially a great movie in the making. The cast and crew were all signed (including famous British actor Charles Laughton) and 70 minutes of film was shot until an accident saw actress Merle Oberon crash her car and filming was abruptly canceled. Depending on who you believe the movie was either scrapped by the movie's director Josef Von Sternberg who was less than impressed with how his film was turning out, or it was genuinely because of Oberon's car accident, which was just one of the many problems the film was plagued with. Whatever the circumstances, the shot footage has become critically lauded by many and is often said to have been one of the best movies that was never actually completed. I, Claudius would since be immortalized in an 1970's BBC series which is often regarded as being one of the most successful drama's in the history of the broadcasting network. It propelled the career's of many unknown British thesps such as Patrick Stewart and Derek Jacobi. 30 odd years later and once again I, Claudius is being lined up for another adaptation. Producer Scott Rudin has paid $2 million dollars for the rights of the novel which is expected to land over at Disney. Rudin had been fighting off Warner Brothers for the rights to the novel which had The Departed duo Leonardo DiCaprio and writer William Monahan lined up but have in the end lost out to Rudin. It may be all over for WB but it doesn't mean DiCaprio and Monahan won't be involved. Variety expect the duo to be hired by Rudin for this adaptation. Interesting developments then. There hasn't quite been the amount of Roman epics I was expecting on our screens after Gladiator blew us all away six years ago but the material in Graves book should have more than enough good stuff to be turned into a decent feature. Actually it might have too much good material (the t.v. series was 13 hours long!) but I'm sure Monahan can handle it. Hell make it an ass hurting 3 hour epic... hire DiCaprio and other actors of such stature and let's win some Oscars!