"Spielberg Goes To War With "Napoleon"" Topic

"With many big-budget film-makers comparing themselves to military generals, in charge of thousands of people working on a single campaign, director Steven Spielberg continues to develop writer/director Stanley Kubrick's anti-war "Napoleon" project as a TV mini-series.

"I've been developing Stanley Kubrick's screenplay," said Spielberg, "for a miniseries, not for a motion picture — about the life of Napoleon. Kubrick wrote the script in 1961…a long time ago."…."
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At least???

Amicalement
Armand

Are there large battles in the script?

A single film would be terrible as it'd be necessarily too brief to cover it all. I for one am glad that Spielberg is doing this – and a mini-series is perfect format.

Sadly it's a Kubrick scrip. It'll probably be about how a rogue French intelligence agency sends an officer sailing up the Seine to assonate Napoleon.

No, that happened. Really. He arrived at Malmaison and found them all standing around naked. "Le horreur! Le horreur."

Having read the script, if Mr Spielberg sticks with that, it should be quite good. And there are big battles….

This is been rumored for years, and this just looks like more rumor for the most part.

We will presumably be told that Nosey was overrated. Thank God the Yanks turned up, though. Even if they were late…

Oh. Wait…

Armand

He's done some good films, so who knows, it might well be a good one. We'll just have to wait and see.

Spielberg usually gets his history right without doing down the Brits unrealistically.

I just hope he uses the correct shade of red.

Well with what was done, with the film technology available, for Lord of the Rings they could take your normal re-anctors qty and make it look much bigger with the appearance of much more men. Who knows they may have been taking shots at the Waterloo 2015 already to use….

MG

As this story first surfaced in 2013 I for one am not holding my breath.

Must say I was interested in their list of films including
Trevor Howard in "Eagle in a Cage" (1951). Other than the star and the date, nothing wrong with that.

Must confess I was just as sure that Dennis Hopper in "The Story of Mankind" (1957) was very unlikely. A long way from Easy Rider…and yet, sure enough…..

If you want to read the scrip….

link

Amicalement
Armand

Depressing. I went to p144 to find Waterloo. You seem to get much narration. ….some maps……No mention of the Union Brigade or La Haye Sainte …….redcoats, but no Allies or even characters. The script elsewhere strikes me as dire.

Clever find though!

You are right my friend… not much battle or combat as we like… but… it would be a film about Napoleón Era… and there are not much of them in the queque…. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I keep saying that a new Waterloo film directed by Peter Jackson would be the way to go. No one does battle scenes better.

Oh sure, with Legolas showing up at Waterloo doing his usual stunts? @Peter Jackson doing Waterloo ROFL

(I gagged when I saw Legolas in the Hobbit movies .. was thinking that maybe I fell asleep through those parts of the book but no – Legolas was NOT in the Hobbit ;))

HappyHussar

Relating to Legolas being in the film The Hobbit while not being in the actual book, we must remember that films are adaptations of books, not exact replicas.

And if I remember rightly, I don't think the film versions of the Sharpe books were exact copies of what was in the books. They were, like all historical dramas, adaptations, which means parts were left out and other parts not in the book were included.

But as Tango01 says, we should welcome anything that includes the Napoleonic period, be it the background or, preferably, as the main narrative.