Earlier last year James Cameron flirted with the notion of directing Angelina Jolie in the title role of Cleopatra but then the space lover decided to take his 3D cameras back to Pandora instead for his Avatar sequels. The project is based on the book Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. Brian Helgeland, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for L.A. Confidential, is writing the adaption. Producer Scott Rudin [True Grit] recently revealed that he and Sony Pictures are “pretty close” to landing a director. Although he didn’t specify, sources are suggesting that Paul Greengrass [Green Zone] is under consideration.
Rudin also discussed the project: “It is a completely revisionist Cleopatra, a much more grown-up sophisticated version. She’s not a sex kitten; she’s a politician, strategist, warrior. In the Joseph Mankiewicz movie [1963's Cleopatra], Elizabeth Taylor is a seductress, but the histories of Cleopatra have been written by men. This is the first to be written by a woman. It felt like such a blow-the-doors-off-the-hinges idea of how to tell it, impossible to resist. We’re pretty close. A lot of directors want to do it, but there is only a handful we’ll make it with.”
