Mike Fleming tells us to file this one under 'tantalizingly possible' which probably mean's it won't happen, but I digress. Fleming writes that Sony and
James Cameron are now in serious talks over a highly ambitious, large scale 3D '
Cleopatra' movie, with
Angelina Jolie attached and anxious to star. Based on
Brian Helgeland's ('Robin Hood', 'Green Zone') adaptation of Stacy Schiff's forthcoming book
Cleopatra: A Life, Sony are planning a historical epic the likes we haven't seen since, well,
'Cleopatra'. Helgeland's work is being described as a "brilliant script deserving of epic treatment" all about "what the Romans took from Egypt" and it's clearly caught the fancy of Sony co-Chairman
Amy Pascal, who is fast tracking the PG-13 project to shoot next year. Costily, risky, ambitious. The previous high-profile crack at 'Cleopatra' in 1963 was the most expensive films ever made (over $300 million budget in today's money, 20 times what it was originally supposed to cost), nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox (before surprisingly, making a profit) as well causing much scandal in the press with passionate affairs, a complete botch job of filming in London (which they had to repeat in Rome) an almost universal critical hatred of the film, it's incredible running time of 244 minutes and it's wild historical inaccuracy.
It's said that this 'Cleopatra' project might be the only thing that entices Cameron away from an 'Avatar' sequel and we imagine he could make it look pretty, and it will be well acted, etc. But after 'Avatar', do we want to see Cameron work in anything other than science fiction for now?