NEW & FORTHCOMING
ANCIENT WORLD MOVIES
(Got a new item, correction, or update? Please let Steven know!)
Click to see 2010 or 2011 releases (archived on separate pages).
Scroll down or click to see 2013 • In the Works • Rumored • On the Shelf
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Are you ready for Spartacus: Vengeance? The next season of the gripping gladiator saga begins January 27, 2012 on Starz, with Liam McIntyre replacing the late Andy Whitfield in the title role, and the surprising return of a character we thought was dead. See a trailer at the official site.
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As the new season of Spartacus approaches on Starz TV, hearken back to the first time the tale of the rebel Thracian gladiator created a sensation in America—Robert Montgomery Bird’s drama in 5 acts, The Gladiator, which premiered in 1831 and catapulted actor Edwin Forrest to fame (he played the role over 1000 times). Then as now, audiences thrilled to the gladiator’s quest for freedom; as one critic wrote, “a finer type of elemental man than Spartacus hardly exists in literature, a perfect union of the primitive virtues, physical prowess, great courage, strong passions, and withal a heart of kindness.” And then as now, the hunk factor played a big role. As another reviewer noted, “Forrest is undoubtedly the best man for Spartacus in Christendom; in which his figure and physique show him to best advantage and his voice and muscle hold out to the last.” Especially stirring was a scene in which “Forrest as Spartacus stood stripped to the waist, his great muscles flexing and bulging, his veins swollen, his jaws and neck rigid...” We will never be able to judge for ourselves which actor made the more compelling Spartacus—Edwin Forrest or the late Andy Whitfield—but in 1831, as in 2010, audiences across America went wild for the Thracian gladiator. You can read the entire text of The Gladiator online here; read about the history of the play and its reception in this chapter. If you’d like to own The Gladiator in print, it’s also included in the anthology Early American Drama.
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Coriolanus actually opened December 2, 2011—but only in New York and LA (to qualify for Oscars); for most viewers, this will be a 2012 movie, with a general US release date on January 20. Working from a screenplay by Gladiator scripter John Logan, Ralph Fiennes (Hades in Clash of the Titans) makes his directing debut and plays the title role in a modern-dress version of Shakespeare’s play about the Roman warrior who turned against Rome. (The story forms a major chapter in Steven’s novel Roma.) Gerard Butler plays Coriolanus’s enemy-turned-comrade, Aufidius. Tagline: “In the arms of an enemy, he will claim vengeance.” (Are the marketers hip to the story’s homoerotic subtext, much discussed by Shakespeare scholars?) Trailer here; more pix here and here.
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| High on Steven’s Top Ten List of Ancient World Movies is the 1963 version of Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor. 20th Century-Fox did a great deal of work on the movie a few years ago, restoring footage that was cut at various stages of release...but some fans crave even more Cleo! The Restored Cleopatra web site goes through the movie scene by scene, supplying the text of dialogue that was cut. The methodology used by webmaster Allan Trivette is not entirely clear, but the result is fascinating if you’re a fan of the movie. Trivette’s amazing collection of Cleo memorabilia can be seen here. The movie is being released in the UK on Region 2 Blu-ray on January 30, 2012. When will we see a Blu-ray release in the US? If you have info about that, please let Steven know! |
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| Thanks to the success of 2010’s Clash of the Titans, Sam Worthington will reprise the role of Perseus in Wrath of the Titans. From the official Warner Bros. synopsis: “Dangerously weakened by humanity’s lack of devotion, the gods are losing control of the imprisoned Titans and their ferocious leader, Kronos, father of the long-ruling brothers Zeus, Hades and Poseidon...Enlisting the help of the warrior Queen Andromeda, Poseidon’s demigod son, Argenor, and fallen god Hephaestus, Perseus bravely embarks on a treacherous quest into the underworld to rescue Zeus, overthrow the Titans and save mankind.” (The full synopsis is about ten times that long, and impossibly convoluted.) Watch a trailer here. US release date is March 30, 2012. |
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Dante’s Inferno Animated is a 40-minute film that follows the journey of Dante and his guide, Virgil, through the circles of hell, with lots of Classical allusions and famous figures of the Ancient World along the way. DVD release is targeted for April, 2012. Eric Roberts is the voice of Dante in the English version, with Vincent Spano as Virgil. For more info and to see a trailer, visit the official site. (A previous movie, Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic, based on a video game, released on DVD and at iTunes in 2010.)
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Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage, directed by and starring Shahin Sean Solomin, claims to be filmed in Dynamation (Ray Harryhausen’s brand of stop-motion special effects) and aims for release in May, 2012; watch the teaser trailer (narrated by Patrick Stewart) here. If you have more info about this much-delayed project, please let Steven know!
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More Sinbad is coming in 2012—in the form of a 13-episode TV series from Sky One in the UK, filmed on location in Malta. Elliot Knight plays the title role. If you have info about broadcast dates or DVD release in either the UK or the US, please let Steven know!
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Look for a TV miniseries based on Robert Harris’s best-seller Pompeii, with a script by Robert Towne (who won an Oscar for Chinatown), and Ridley Scott among the producers. The novel is a thriller set in the final days before the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. On his collaboration with the director of Gladiator, Harris said there is “no filmmaker in the world with a stronger track record for bringing ancient Rome to life than Ridley Scott. He is the man who reinvented the genre.” Image: detail from the painting “The Last Day of Pompeii” by Karl Bryullov. IMDb projects broadcast in 2012. If you have more info on the project, please let Steven know!
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Holy Isis! Now there’s a second Pompeii project, this one a feature-length movie helmed by Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson from a script by Lee and Janet Scott Batchler. The Hollywood Reporter provides this breathless synopsis: “Set in late summer 79 A.D., Pompeii revolves around the slave of a shipping tycoon who dreams of the day he can buy his freedom and marry his master’s daughter. What the slave doesn’t know is that she’s already been promised to a corrupt Roman senator, while he’s been sold to another owner. Just when things can’t get any worse, Mt. Vesuvius erupts with the power of 40 nuclear bombs. But the slave is trapped on a ship headed for Naples, separated from his love and best friend, a gladiator who is trapped in the city’s coliseum. As fire and ash destroy the only world he’s ever known, the slave is determined to get back and rescue them.” But...where’s the kitchen sink? Look for shooting to start in spring 2012. If you have more info on the project, please let Steven know!
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In the works for 2012 is Jason and the Argonauts: The Kingdom of Hades, apparently based on the graphic novel of the same name, which follows the fortunes of the Argonauts after the quest for the Golden Fleece—essentially a sequel to the 1963 movie Jason and the Argonauts. See a preview here. The same publisher, under the “Ray Harryhausen Presents” imprint, gave us the graphic novel Wrath of the Titans.
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It had to happen: Gladiators v. Werewolves! Britannia, A.D. 160: When a Roman governor discovers a clan of werewolves, he decides to capture the beasts so he can show them off in the arena—but the fur flies when the werewolves strike back. Official web page is here. Shooting is scheduled to commence in June 2012. If you have more info, please let Steven know. There’s more monster mayhem in Roman Britain upcoming in Mortis Rex (see item elsewhere on this page).
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| The Ancient World monster movie Mortis Rex (Latin for “King of the Dead”) is set in A.D. 122, as a disgraced Roman warrior, sent to defend a garrison in remote Scotland from a spate of mysterious killings, must unite with the local Druids to vanquish a terrifying supernatural beast. The project is the brainchild of Hellboy co-writer Peter Briggs, who will make his directorial debut. The setting (Hadrian’s Wall and beyond) is similar to 2010’s Centurion and 2011’s The Eagle; there’s more monster mayhem in Roman Britain upcoming in Gladiators v. Werewolves (see item elsewhere on this page). IMDb posits release in 2012. Concept art above by Stuart Jennett. |
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II. Coming in 2013 and Beyond:
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Thanks to the huge success of 300, watch for a sequel...er, prequel...300: Battle of Artemisia (formerly titled Xerxes), aiming for release in 2013. (Steven suspects this project will go through yet another title change or two; “Artemisia” and “Xerxes” are both too big a mouthful for most red-blooded American male moviegoers. Why not just 300 2...or 300 II...or 302?) The movie may or may not be directed by Zack Snyder, and may or may not be based on the graphic novel Xerxes, which was to have been published as a 6-issue miniseries by Dark Horse Comics in 2011 but has not yet appeared. Confused? Don’t worry, they all die in the end. Seen here: the first sneak peek at Miller’s graphic novel, a poster issued by Dark Horse Comics.
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Portuguese TV star Diogo Morgado will portray Joseph in the drama Mary Mother of Christ; Camilla Belle will play the title role. Peter O’Toole (as Symeon) and Al Pacino (as Herod) will lend some star-power to the cast. Look for release in 2013.
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Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra? Producer Scott Rudin (Oscar winner for No Country for Old Men) bought the screen rights to Pultizer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff”s bestseller Cleopatra: A Life and says a movie project is being developed for and with Jolie. Expect release no earlier than 2013.
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Look for a new movie version of Hercules based on the graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars, aiming for release in 2014. (After the muscular success of 300, it was inevitable that Hollywood would give us more visions of the Ancient World directly based on comic books.) Above: cover art for issue 5. At right: volume 1 of the graphic novel by Steve Moore and Admira Jiwaya.
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III. In the Works • Rumored • On the Shelf:
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| Is Katherine of Alexandria defunct? The drama about the legendary martyr from the era of the Roman emperors Maxentius and Constantine was clearly intended to be a Christian reply to Agora, with the same setting (Alexandria) and many details in common (a library is destroyed, and the heroine must brave a terrible fate). If this sounds suspiciously like Agora, consider that some historians (see Harold Thayler Davis, Alexandria: The Golden City) believe that Katherine may not have existed, and was invented specifically to serve as an exemplary Christian counterpart to the pagan philosopher Hypatia, the heroine of Agora. So do those who hated Agora hope to have the last word with Katherine of Alexandria? The “true story” is said to be “inspired by the recent discovery of the 4th-century diary of St. Katherine”; if you know anything about this purported (bogus?) document, please let Steven know. The cast includes Peter O’Toole, Brian Blessed, and Joss Ackland. The production was plagued by charges of non-payment to cast and crew and the movie’s official Web site (once accessible here) seems to have vanished; but the movie may nonetheless have been completed, if the catalogue entry at this page can be trusted. If you have any information about a DVD or theatrical release, please let Steven know. |
Spanish auteur Julio Medem (Sex and Lucía) may direct Pericles and Aspasia, an English-language film based on one of antiquity’s great love stories, between the 50-year-old Pericles, ruler of Athens in its fifth century B.C. heyday, and the 24-year-old Aspasia, a free-thinking, sexually liberated beauty who was also a skilled rhetorician. There’s been zero buzz about this project for a while; if you have more info, please let Steven know! (And has anyone out there read the recent novel by Karen Essex about Aspasia, Stealing Athena?)
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From Variety: “After turning Homer’s epic poem The Iliad into the 2004 film Troy, Warner Bros. and Brad Pitt are teaming with director George Miller to adapt the Greek poet’s other masterwork, The Odyssey. Their intention is to transfer the tale to a futuristic setting in outer space.” There’s been zero buzz about this project for a while. Has it been shelved? If you have info, please let Steven know! (Photo: Brad Pitt as Achilles on the set of Troy.)
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Will there be a feature film follow-up to the TV series Rome? Executive producer and scripter Bruno Heller has such a project in development with the working title Bona Dea. The story broke here. Actor Kevin McKidd (Vorenus) affirmed that Heller was still working on the script as of late 2010.
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Gianni Nunnari, producer of Alexander and 300, has more irons in the Ancient World fire. Along with Immortals and the 300 prequel (see items above), Nunnari is working on a movie about the young Julius Caesar based on Conn Iggulden’s Emperor novel series, and Odysseus, in development (IMDb shows 2013 release). The latter is not the Brad Pitt futuristic Oddysey project (see the item elsewhere on this page). Will it be a full-blown Ancient World epic? If you have updates on any of these projects, please let Steven know!
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First there was buzz about a movie version of I, Claudius (based on the novel by Robert Graves) starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Then Leonardo was out, but direcor Jim Sheridan was in. Now it looks like the project has become a TV series. (Derek Jacobi played the stuttering emperor in the 1976 BBC miniseries; picture at right.) Got an update? Please let Steven know!
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In Prisoners of the Sun, an archaeological expedition discovers a lost city beneath a pyramid and re-awakens the gods of ancient Egypt. This trailer went up in 2010. Director Roger Christian won an Oscar for Star Wars art direction and a nomination for Alien (so far, so good), but also directed Battlefield Earth (uh oh!)—so will this head straight to DVD, or straight to oblivion? If you have release information, please let Steven know!
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| A couple of years ago the Web buzzed with news that Catherine Zeta-Jones would play Cleopatra in the 3-D musical Cleo directed by Steven Soderbergh. Although the story has been oft-filmed (most famously with the 1963 Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor in the title role), this Cleo would be Hollywood’s first musical based on the star-crossed lovers—and transposed to 1920s America, with songs by the group Guided by Voices. (No buzz about this project in a while. Has it been shelved? If you have info, please let Steven know!) |
The grapevine has been buzzing for years about John Boorman’s ambition to film Marguerite Yourcenar’s classic novel Memoirs of Hadrian. The last round of rumors posited 007 star Daniel Craig as Hadrian; no word on who might play Antinous, the young lover deified by the emperor after drowning in the Nile. For the ultimate in Antinous worship, visit The Sacred Antinous. To see videos about Hadrian by the British Museum, click here. Got an update? Please let Steven know!
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Young Alexander the Great, about the conqueror’s teenaged years (think “Alexander 90210”), stars Sam Heughan (right) as Alexander and Paul Telfer (of Hercules and Spartacus) as Hephaestion. This movie has been in the can since 2007. If you have more info, please let Steven know! Meanwhile, you can watch a rare German commercial featuring a young, sword-wielding Paul Telfer—see image at left—at this page. (You must be a registed adult at Dailymotion to view this video.) |
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| Coming down the chimney one of these years? Nicholas of Myra is about the original St. Nick. No, Virginia, not Santa Claus, but his ancient prototype who attended the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, shortly after Constantine the Great made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. This independent feature, clearly a labor of love, has been in production for years, with a lavish web site. But where is the movie? If you have any release info, please let Steven know! |
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As recently as March, 2009, the web buzzed with talk that Scarlett Johansson would star in The Amazon Warrior, the tale of a gladiatrix who exacts vengeance on the army that destroyed her homeland, circa 200 B.C., with a screenplay by the team of Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain (scripters for Outlander and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans). But lately, no news. Got an update? Please let Steven know! |
Vin Diesel long ago announced his intention to make his directorial debut and star as Hannibal the Conqueror, the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with elephants to menace Rome, working from a script by Oscar-winner David Franzoni (Gladiator, King Arthur) based on the novel Hannibal by Ross Leckie. (Victor Mature played the role in the 1960 Hannibal, and Alexander Siddig starred in a 2006 BBC telemovie included as an extra in the DVD set Warriors.) Will Vin’s dream come to fruition? If you’ve got an update, please let Steven know!
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When in Rome...check out 3D Rewind Rome, playing in a theater near the Colosseum. The 30-minute virtual-reality guided tour of the city circa A.D. 310 includes a walk through the teeming Subura, a forbidden peek at the Vestals in their temple, and a gladiator combat with the emperor Maxentius presiding. |
For otherwise impossible-to-find DVDs, check out Maximus Media in Canada. Their historical catalogue includes The Last Roman (aka Struggle for Rome) from 1968, starring Orson Welles as Justinian; the uncut 9-hour version of the 1985 miniseries A.D.; and the 1972 Charlton Heston version of Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra.
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Gertrude Stein Matisse Picasso SFMOMA modern art
From the introduction to Seneca: Four Tragedies and Octavia, by E. F. Watling:
Cicero, at the festival celebrating the opening of Rome’s first permanent theatre, complained of the pathetic performances of old-fashioned actors past their prime, and of the spectacular ostentation which had been imposed on the old tragedies: “Who wants to see six hundred mules in Clytaemnestra or three hundred goblets in The Trojan Horse, or a battle between fully equipped armies of horse and foot?”
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What would Cicero have made of 300?
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From Achilles to Zeus: Stephen Moss, film writer for The Guardian, offers an A-Z guide to Ancient World movies. His spot-on entry for the letter S: “Slaves: Notable by their absence in films about Sparta, even though they were the bedrock of Spartan society. Presumably acknowledgment of Sparta’s large slave population would sit oddly with a portrayal of a heroic society that valued freedom...” Click here to read the entire alphabet.
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