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It was a screenplay first written by Stanley Kubrick back in 1961 and now Steven Spielberg says he’s working with the late filmmaker’s estate on the project. “I’ve been developing Stanley Kubrick’s screenplay, for a miniseries not for a motion picture, about the life of Napoleon,” Spielberg recently told the French TV network Canal+. Kubrick left behind extensive research archives - location photos, notes and boxes of other details which provided a book on the subject. But studios balked at the expensive project. (Kubrick eventually made Barry Lyndon which takes place 15 years before the Napoleonic wars.) Spielberg’s 2001 A.I. began as a Kubrick project. The Napoleon news comes after Spielberg delayed Robopocalypse. Recently named jury president for the Cannes Film Festival in May, he’s producing Jurassic Park IV in 3D for June 2014, and developing another HBO series with Tom Hanks. Still pending is whether he’ll take on the Moses epic Gods And Kings for Warner Bros.
Steven Spielberg Developing Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Napoleon’ As TV Miniseries
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“I’m putting Robopocalypse on hold so I can make the movie Stanley Kubrick couldn’t figure out how to make.”
This sounds promising.
Kubrick knew damn well how he wanted to film this. It wasn’t made due to budgetary issues and the fact that the 1970 film WATERLOO had been released and lost a great deal of money.
UM no, that’s an ignorant comment.
Kubrick was the best filmmaker that ever lived.
The studio got cold feet on the money end.
I think you could make a good argument about that. Kubrick was first of all, a craftsman and nothing if he wasn’t serious. Even Dr. Strangelove was serious because it was seriously made.
The special effects in “2001″ were cutting edge.
Spielberg is not in Kubrick’s league. No one is.
>>>This sounds promising.
LOL! Speilberg’s “A.I.” was possibly the worst movie I had ever seen: cloying, sentimental, with some disgustingly gratuitous scenes of violence (e.g., intelligent robots being executed/demolished for sport by means of giant rotating blades) and disturbing scenes of the boy robot sitting peacefully under water on the bottom of a swimming pool. I don’t remember how the film was rated, but it certainly wan’t for children.
As an ardent admirer of Kubrick, I am most definitely NOT looking forward to Spielberg’s take on “Napoleon.” I get the impression that Spielberg has a lot of self-doubt regarding his own reputation and abilities as a “serious” filmmaker, so he’s sort of piggy-backing on the reputation and abilities of Kubrick by completing film projects that Kubrick was unable to get done during his lifetime.
You are exactly right. “Overly sentimental”. I was able to look past what Spielberg did too Kubrick’s vision in AI. In the movie of Kubrick’s biography his wife who starred in “Paths of Glory” stated she was relieved when he dropped his obsession with making a movie with the theme of the Holocaust. “Shindlers List” followed, a shadow of the vision Kubrick had in mind.
Couldn’t agree more… I loved Kubrick and it’s sad that his work was tarnished by Spielberg taking his vision and turning it into the usual TE fluff garbage. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s wanting to do it again? I won’t even bother trying to watch this. I’m still annoyed at the 5 different times AI should have ended.
A. I want my money back.
-RnsW
I haven’t liked a Spielberg movie since Duel. But I guess if you like milquetoast sap that puts ‘tugging at the heartstrings’ before everything else, he’s your guy.
Oh bless you Spielberg!!!
Maybe he will also buy the Beatles catalogue from the Michael Jackson estate.
A.I. genuinely had some really nice moments… it’s one of the few later Spielberg movies that has continued to grow on me.
Definitely open to seeing what else he does with Kubrick’s untouched works.
I agree. A.I. had its moments. It was never billed as a “children’s movie” – it just had a very talented kid in it alongside a young Jude Law.
Here’s my question for ya’ll. Why can’t Steve Spielberg develop material, original stories? Why is everything about someone famous, granted important, who we’all know something about?
To the big bosses: it would be a better use is Steve’s time to get him involved in original material, good stories or character pieces. I think he has become just another Michael Bay.
Lincoln was a nice movie on History Channel. If Steve’s name wasn’t on itdo you think the praise shalacked on it prevents 90% who saw it would have seen it?
Listen ya’all. I may be a nobody, maybe a somebody or even an antibody — but I just don’t get why Steve must become part of the Twilight crowd.
Thank you for your time and I appreciate your answers as well as your understanding.
Good day.
T.S., III
Seriously? Jaws, ET, Close Encounters, Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List, Private Ryan, etc.?
These movies are all at least 15 years old (JAWS is almost 40 years ago), which I think goes to the point of T.S.’s post.
Four of those were 30 years ago. Schindler’s about a guy , Ryan about a guy. Why is Steve only making bottom line crap? He has the money. Enough! Take his talent and tell great stories say in the 10-20 mil range. Real original stories. Add to the library of Cinema like Tarantino. Instead he gives us more of what we don’t need. Take one budget from one of his latest farts and you could have 10 films in the 10 mil range like Training Day, In Bruges, Slimg Blade, Affliction. You get the point. Great original quality that add to the human creative endeavor. He is a waste of space now and I can’t figure out wtf he is doing this for. We don’t need him making another overhyped overblown wasted budget movie anyone can make. Just like hits more difficult to write an emotional scene with two people than it is to write a car chase. He is “Duel”-ing with Michael Bay and Brett Ratner for worst director of the century at this point.
It would be great if someone with clout, like Spielberg, would open a studio committed only to making original stories. No remakes, adaptations, reboots, sequels, tv show, theme park or board game movies allowed.
You sound troll-y but if not, you’re a buffoon. Lincoln was a history channel movie? Are you f**king serious? He’s looking into completing an enormous project Stanley Kubrick got elbows deep into but was thwarted by cost and timing and you’re saying this brings him into the “Twilight crowd”?
Gotta be a troll. Nobody can be this stupid.
Spielberg is and has always been a part of the Twilight crowd. He makes well produced pop entertainment but he is not a great filmmaker. This is disappointing news.
I am going to reply along with gunslinger. Are you not familiar with the first half of Spielberg’s career of nothing but original work?
Sorry, wordslinger.
“Here’s my question for ya’ll. Why can’t Steve Spielberg develop material, original stories? Why is everything about someone famous, granted important, who we’all know something about?”
I’m not even sure what to say about this… You do realize that “Lincoln” and “Schindler’s List” aren’t the only films he’s made, right? In fact, of the 20 or so feature-length films he has made, maybe five or six of them are based on true stories. And “true stories” like “Empire of the Sun” and “Catch Me If You Can” aren’t about people that are particularly famous.
“To the big bosses: it would be a better use is Steve’s time to get him involved in original material, good stories or character pieces.”
Like, uh, most of the films he has ever made? Also, I’m not sure what “big bosses” you’re referring to – at this point in time, Spielberg himself is about as big a “boss” as there is. I can guarantee you that he can freely pick and choose his material.
“I think he has become just another Michael Bay.”
This doesn’t even make sense on any level. Stylistically and in terms of the stories they tell, Spielberg and Bay are worlds apart.
Well Said. The original material developed by Spielberg is pretty darn good. For the past several years though, it appears as if he is simply “mailing it in”.
I WISH that Kubric, my favorite film maker of all time, had made A.I. – I’m sure that he would have omitted much of the “filler” in the middle of the movie. It’s still worth a look-see though.
~(Ä)~
Great move Steven!
Good God…First it was AI. He made a horrible film from Kubrick’s script and now wants to do this!?! Unless he gets some unusually talented writers/directors it will another attempt of the hugely commercial Steven trying to emulate the genius.
Steven’s also a genius. Just because he also happens to be his own industry and makes a gazillion dollars doesn’t make a stitch of difference to me. He’s been pretty damn brilliant for a pretty damn long time.
And the Hollywood Elite Mob is ruthless in suppressing the competition, as in Mel Gibson, Don Ellis, Tony Scott.
Mixed feeling about this. AI was a mess but had a few redeeming qualities, such as the overall theme and a few stunning visuals. Basically anything Kubrick was responsible for.
In many ways I think “The Greatest Film Never Made” should remain as that. Which doesn’t mean I won’t be first in line on opening day.
To all of those criticizing Spielberg, if you had an ounce of his talent and imagination you’d be lucky.
and if Spielberg had an ounce of the imagination or talent Kubrick had we’d all be lucky.
That says it all: Spielberg is just a guy who COULD make great films but essentially sells out to making something as commercial as possible-wanting to have mild appeal to as many people as possible… and he’s like the opposite of what Kubrick was. I just find Spielberg stuff to be pretty shallow and manipulative of people’s base emotions.
I’ve been waiting all my life for someone to make a film about the greatest man who ever lived.
” I think he has become just another Michael Bay.”
Ignorent comment.
When calling someone ignorAnt, spelling is critical.
I’ve always thought that “Lost Horizon” by James Hilton would be a good project (as TV though probably) for Spielberg the producer. There’s a reason to do it too. Frank Capra’s original was restored but not completely and not well (in my opinion) and although it has a lot of glamour it has dated badly in spite of the iconic performances of Ronald Colman et al. The Ross Hunter musical re-make was a famous disaster – Hollywood has more or less stayed away from the property ever since from what I can remember – but it shouldn’t have been a musical and it just wasn’t Hunter’s thing. So (for the most part) there’s really no decent INTACT copy or good visual version to see last time I looked. Its fantasy landscape seems tailor-made for today’s C.G.I. and special effects, the underlying material more dense and potentially expressionistic than originally convened by any party. Great excitement with the plane crash, great romance, great themes including the quest for peace and eternal youth… a millennial thing peeking over the chasm to the expansive potential of the other side. Done right plenty of merchandising and licensing possibilities. People forget that F.D.R. called the original Camp David Shangri-La as from the book. And that guy never did anything arbitrarily. Not particularly taught in high schools anymore as well so it would be fresh. To me the novel always seemed like a snow-bound “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” or “Swiss Family Robinson” but about adult preoccupations yet all-age-friendly. (There was a pre-C.G.I. BBC version with Derek Jacobi in 1981.) (While I guess in its day it was particularly exotic and exciting and a cultural sensation Capra’s version is wholly lacking in forward momentum in my opinion. But the trappings, the milieu, are the definition of opulent and glamorous old school, a great production team’s dream.)
Please, Spielberg, if you read the above post: DO NOT make Lost Horizon. The original was fine, the book is perfection and we don’t need another version of it that appeals to children. Leave it alone.
I feel horrible for anyone who doesn’t like AI. You’re missing out on an absolute masterpiece. At least it’s received a lot more recognition since it’s release. I was quite pleased to see it in many “top films of the decade” lists.
Ditto. One of the ballsiest films to be produced by Hollywood in the last 20 years or more. Of course, the sycophantic idiots here who dislike it wouldn’t know what a great film is if it bit them in their asses.
Absolutely true. Almost all of the last 2 generations in this country are made up of uncultured, morons!
I love presumptuous posts by people who can’t understand why people would be so disappointed and aggravated by what AI became. Here’s a hint: It’s because the theme was great and what Kubrick would have done with it would have been really satisfying… and instead, it got made by a guy who wants to make everything more bland so it will appeal to as many people as possible. It’s like taking the music of Frank Zappa and having U2 rewrite it and perform it.
You didn’t follow the decade long development of AI did you? It was essentially the same story regardless if it was Kubrick doing it or Spielberg.
The first half and the excavation tracking shot is some the best science fiction of the last twenty years.
Yep. “AI” is great. There are a few elements that don’t really work – but as a whole, it’s one of Spielberg’s most brilliantly realized films. It also has one of the most daring, bleakest endings of any mainstream Hollywood film.
I loved it until the homage to 2001 at the end, it felt tacked on and unnecessary to the story.
It wasn’t an homage, it was in the script that Kubrick had ordered and approved. There’s conceptual art for these scenes made when Kubrick was alive.
Kubrick most likely wanted these scenes to explicitly echo 2001. Spielberg wouldn’t add those on his own. He might have not found the right distance to shoot these scenes, as he was paying tribute to a guy who wanted to quote himself, but I think that the biggest lost opportunity in the movie was the “flesh fair” in the middle of the film or the “Gigolo Joe” character. Spielberg followed the script but this is the kind of stuff that Kubrick would have developed a lot more on set.
But Kubrick was also aware that he wouldn’t be able to direct A.I. Given how long he took to shoot Full Metal Jacket or Eyes Wide Shut, the main actor would have aged too much while he’s supposed to look the same. That’s the main reason for which he had originally approached Spielberg.
And Thomas is right about the ending. Most of the people feel that it would have been a better movie if it had stopped with the “boy” in the sea, trying to talk to the Blue Fairy. But the whole point of the movie is the final scene with the “mother”, in which androids try to understand humanity by watching an outdated android interacting with a simulacrum of an actual human being before unplugging him for good.
It’s obvious to me that the stuff about the hairbrush and the DNA sample that would allow them to recreate the mother is just a fairytale they tell David, so he would be comfortable. But it’s an absolutely harsh ending, that required the kind of sensibility that is Spielberg’s forte. I’m a huge Kubrick freak, but I don’t think he would have done better with the ending.
Leave Kubrick’s name out of it, Spielberg. It’s not a Kubrick project unless Kubrick directs it. Quit bastardizing his legend.
You realize Kubrick was actively collaborating with him on A.I. before he died and held Spielberg in extremely high regard, right? No, of course you don’t. Because you’re just another hater.
Yes…they were collaborating at the end. Unfortunately, the master had too much wine that night, Eyes Wide Shut was a train-wreck. So sad for the greatest filmmaker of our time.
This should be great! As we all know,every single thing Steven has made or had his name attached to on television has been an incredible success-right?
AI was utter poop. Scaling Napoleon down into a TV miniseries is like taking a dump on Kubrick’s legacy. Ridley Scott or Christopher Nolan are the best men for the job. Spielberg should stick to producing Transformers.
Kubrick had such a long script that it would have been a four hour epic or a film divided in two parts, a practice that had been discontinued in the ’70s when Novecento flopped (Sergio Leone thought about it for Once Upon A Time in America, but it was vetoed by the producers).
Besides, there wouldn’t be an audience now for this kind of film, even compared to Lincoln, which is about an iconic figure of American history.
HBO, on the other hand, has already produced John Adams or Game of Thrones and would be the perfect home for an epic historical miniseries.
Spielberg is a HUGE talent when it comes to making commercial films about fish, dinos and war. But there was only one Stanley Kubrick. And even in Spielberg’s successes, he just can’t keep his hand out of the cookie jar…like in Schindler’s List with the little girl wearing the red coat…not to mention the scene he inserted into Zaillian’s script which probably makes him cringe to this day.
The story of Napoleon is a dramatic roller coaster, a crazy mix of power intrigue and blood. Why can’t we just admit that it’s a big story and should be told in some form? I can still hear George C Scott say “It was the carts. The blood on the snow. Napoleon knew he was finished.”
The problem with Lincoln is that it’s not well based on the book “Team of Rivals”. In the movie, this team just sat there while Daniel Day Lewis pointed his finger at them.
The lead will be a short list.
Danny DeVito size? Bob Hoskins? There are not many short actors in Hollywood I can think of, oh wait TOM CRUISE!
Napoleon was only short if you think old English and French measurements of length are interchangeable. (They aren’t) In reality Napoleon was of average height (between 5’5 and 5’7) for his time. So casting should be wide open.
If it isn’t then that would indicate that the entire team didn’t even bother to read the Wikipedia article on Napoleon to get some groundwork for historical accuracy. Presumably, the rest of this project will be equally half-assed and sloppy and casting will be the least of its problems.
In Ridley Scott’s version… Napoleon would either be a woman, long to be a woman, metamorphose into a woman, or be about the woman genius advising Napoleon (except for his lost battles), be the untold story of the woman Napoleon raped, or be Napoleon’s woman (who has an illicit affair with the single decent male portrayed in the film – who is most likely black.) That is Ridley Scott.
Napoleon is cool, but I find people like Napoleon III and Prince Imperial Napoleon more interesting to read about. III was the last French monarch after losing to the Germans in the 1870′s war, and Prince Imperial got speared by Zulu’s in Africa and was the last of the Bonapartes. If they spent time on Elba after Napoleon’s exile and later Saint Helena that might be cool only his sister visited him and he lived in class on that island. Otherwise been there, done that, right? Goes to Russia, yada yada yada.
Napoleon isn’t exactly a “concept” or “idea”. I don’t see how it’s possible to tell Kubricks version without Kubrick doing it.
Couldn’t imagine a filmmaker LESS fitting in style and impulse than Spielberg to Kubrik.. yet can’t think of a filmmaker that could actually make these Kubrik post mortem projects happen aside from Spielberg… but happy to live without it as what Spielberg turned AI into was an absolute SHAME, based on well, what Kubrik would’ve done with it.
I know this will never happen, but I wish they filmed this in french, as it should be.
Steven Spielberg will not be able to recreate what Kubrick envisioned. Kubrick was a master of dialogue as well as unapparent wit. Spielberg is a good director for a mainstream/pop audience, however lacks the depth and creativity of Kubrick.
I’ve never walked away from a Spielberg movie pondering the message or plot. If you want to see genius watch Space Odyssey, clockwork orange, strangelove, or full metal jacket.
I walked away from “The Shining” thinking, “Boy…did he ever screw that one up!”
Go back to “AI” and watch the attached extra material where Spielberg is interviewed, an accomplishment to be sure but very little if any credit given to the original genesis of the idea.
Please Spielberg, don’t give this project to “The Pacific” crew to screw it up!
It will most-assuredley be a CGI-heavy production. Would’ve been interesting to see what Kubrick would have done with all-live action!
Maybe? —Spielberg has opened at least one eye
regarding Franchise slum Hollywood’s ‘overlook’
of the 200th Anniversary of the DEFEAT of the
Globalist Napoleonic police state at Moscow?
Instead of Napoleon’s global police state, Britain got a Rothschild-run police state, which they thoughtfully transferred to the US through their lackeys Wilson and FDR. Their bloodsucking money frenzy is up to trillions of dollars in debt gouged out of US taxpayers. The “pound of flesh.”