While his autobiographical film “The Fabelmans” is being released in cinemas, Steven Spielberg has just announced his next madness: turning Stanley Kubrick’s “Napoleon” into a mini-series.
No, Steven Spielberg is not working on a new feature film. The filmmaker, whose latest film The Fabelmans will be released this February 22 in France, has announced a mini-series project on Napoleon.
A first in his career, but that’s not all: he will adapt the screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, who had dropped this idea in the early seventies.
The information was revealed by the interested party during a press conference organized at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 21. This biopic carried by Stanley Kubrick from the end of the sixties is one of the most famous unfinished projects in the history of cinema.
At the time, the director of 2001 and The Shining composed a 180-page script that traces the life of the emperor, from his childhood in Ajaccio until his death on the island of Saint Helena.
While the film is in the development phase, names are circulating, such as David Hemmings and Jack Nicholson for the role of Napoleon, as well as Audrey Hepburn for that of his wife, Josephine. The monstrous cost of the project discourages the MGM studio, which finally decides to throw in the towel.
“With the help of Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan, we are mounting a major production for HBO based on Stanley Kubrick’s original screenplay for Napoleon”, specifies Steven Spielberg before revealing that it will be a plot divided into seven parts.
Several years ago, some directors like Cary Joji Fukanaga and David Auburn also had the project to adapt the script, in vain. While waiting for Steven Spielberg’s mini-series, another biopic on Bonaparte will see the light of day, the one directed by Ridley Scott with Joaquin Phoenix and expected for 2023.