Since your trusted HOLLYWOOD SPY is one of web's leading places for all things historical, we are ever so excited with the number of epic
movies and series which await us in the future. Another one on this list is a television series on
NAPOLEON! According to "Digital Spy" legendary
Steven Spielberg will helm this new show based on the materials which are deemed to be
Stanley Kubrick's unfinished life's work! Instead of a movie, the material on the infamous French general and ruler who covered half of Europe with blood and death, will be turned into TV series! Kubrick wrote the script back in the 1960's but didn't produce it due to high costs so this will now be second of his projects to be finished by Spielberg since Steven also directed and finished Kubrick's last film A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE after Kubrick died in the 90's!
HUNDRED & SELECTION SF SHOWS CAST ADDITIONS
In other TV news today,
CW's upcoming sf pilot
THE HUNDRED has found
its lead star in Australian actress and beauty
Eliza Taylor. In the
show set almost a century after a nuclear war devastated the Earth she
will play a young rebel who is part of a 100-strong spaceship crew sent
back to the planet to rebuild the human race.
I've reported earlier
last week that Australian boys
Bob Morley and
Eli Goree will also play
members of the spaceship crew!
They are just some of the many Australian
actors who are scoring roles in new US TV pilots, and
you already know
that
another Oz girl,
Adelaide Kane will play Mary Queen of Scots in
CW's new historical drama
REIGN!
CW has also found their male lead for
another sf teen project -
THE SELECTION which is set 300 years in the
future and follows an epic romance centring on a young woman named
America Singer (I reported last week that Israeli actress
Yael Grobglas
has been picked for the role) chosen by lottery to participate in a
competition with 25 other women for the Royal Prince Maxon's hand to
become the nation's next queen.
Balancing her loyalty to family, true
love and the kingdom, she must attempt to remain true to herself as she
navigates the cutthroat competition and palace intrigue, all while a
budding rebellion threatens to topple the crown. The update is that
young
Michael Malarkey will play prince Maxon, the charming,
self-serving and untrustworthy son of the king and queen who are not
pleased with his reckless behaviour. He's thrilled to have a group of
young women competing for his affections and is intrigued by the feisty
labor class girl America. Another cast member is
Lucien Laviscount who
will play Aspen Leger, a handsome and brave man from the servant class
who is having a secret and illegal relationship with America!
J.J. ABRAMS ROBOT SERIES
Meanwhile, over at HBO their upcoming mini series
THE NORMAL HEART which already has
Matt Bomer, Julia Roberts and
Mark Ruffalo in the cast, has just added JOHN CARTER's
Taylor Kitsch and BIG BANG THEORY's
Jim Parsons. The series tells the story of the AIDS crisis in New York City during the early 1980s!
THR reports that Fox has also found an actor for their upcoming sf pilot!
Michael Ealy will star in the untitled robot drama produced by
J.J. Abrams. This action packed buddy cop show set in the near future, when all LAPD officers are partnered with highly evolved humanlike androids, will see Ealy playing Dorian, the android partner of LAPD officer John Kennex who understands humanity more than his human counterpart.
Great news about Napoleon mini series!
ReplyDeletehope he doesn't cast Tom Hanks in the title role :(
DeleteThat would be a horrid mistake.
Deletefingers crossed he doesn't make it!
DeleteWill RoboCop be making a cameo in the J.J. Abrams robot show?
ReplyDeleteno, he is busy shooting his own movie remake with Joel Kinnaman in the lead role.
DeleteYou scared me at first with The Hundred news. I thought I was seeing my story told by someone else until you mentioned spaceships. Whew! :P
ReplyDeleteLots of futuristic projects in the works to go with the historical epics.
How come? Didn't know you had a HUNDRED story :)
DeleteWell, HOLLYWOOD SPY is one of web's leading sites on science fiction, fantasy and historical projects, so we focus on those :) Tomorrow something more according to your taste - something about Vikings :)
I'm still very much on a Viking kick. I really did love the first episode of the new show. I know it will get more brutal in future episodes, but it's like watching living history because the sets and costumes were so well done.
DeleteCostumes were good in the show? I hated the ones shown in promo pictures, are the ones in the show different?
DeleteNo, they're very cool. Very VIking. Lots of leather and Dark Ages tunics and furs. No one looks like they shave or bathe or brush their teeth. It's perfect. :D
DeleteLOL but on the pics all their outfits seem oversized and not fitted to their gorgeous Viking bodies and that is what bothers me :) Hope your hubs won't read the part about not brushing teeth... he might get some nasty ideas :)
DeleteI'm glad that Jim Parsons is reprising his stage role on the TV miniseries of The Normal Heart. I love him as Dr. Sheldon Cooper but I'd hate to see him get typecast as only that character. He's too talented to be known for only one role.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen him in anything so far, so I can't comment.
Delete"The Normal Heart" sounds great! It will be nice to see Jim Parsons outside of TBBT. Also, the whole cast is great.
ReplyDeleteglad you like it
DeleteI love Jim Parsons.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure he's happy about it :PPPP
DeleteKubrick writing in the 1960's about Napoleon. I'm picturing history meets Clockwork Orange. I hope he uses actors from the actual countries where the history took place. And no Tom Hanks, you're right about that one.
ReplyDeleteas far as I got it, Kubrick worked on the project for ten years or so,collecting material and such things but never managed to actually direct it.
DeleteI'd love Alessio Boni as Napoleon :) I still remember the famous Napoleon mini series with Armand Assante and Jacqueline Bisett
wait, what... i am thinking about bill and ted and that giant water slide... ziggy-piggy..
ReplyDeleteWhat colourful shrooms did you eat for breakfast today, Zombie Master?
Deletejust the normal kind...
Deleteseasoned with a Smurf or two? Tow is entirely too much for a breaky....
DeleteI like the idea of a napoleon miniseries
ReplyDeleteshould be good if they get the casting right!
DeleteWill the Napoleon series answer the question of why he kept his hand in his coat?
ReplyDelete.......dhole
oooh, I think I read the answer on that somewhere, but forgot but it was :) I know it wasn't fleas...
DeleteA Napolean movie?! I didn't see that one coming... But I dig it!
ReplyDeleteseries not a movie, Jessie :P
DeleteThe Napoleon series sounds pretty great. I wonder who they will cast as his horse?
ReplyDeleteprobably that lovely horsey from WAR HORSE :ppp
DeleteBut he might have to dye his hair for the role though :)
DeleteLMAO all these Tom Hanks comments. He's far too tall to play Napoleon. I think Steven will do a good job. He does most of the time. Napoleon was a weasely little man with a foul temper. He did have a brilliant logistical mind.
ReplyDeletewell if they made Dicky Armitage small like a dwarf I'm guessing it could be done to horrid Hanks too :)
DeleteWow! If anyone can translate Kubrick's vision, it would be someone like Spielberg (although personally I wish Ridley Scott had tried it first). Amazing. I have a copy of Kubrick's screenplay for Napoleon and although I don't agree with all of his scene choices (representing in chronological order some of the most famous episodes in Napoleon's life) it gives the film-maker a complete blueprint to storyboard the film Kubrick intended.
ReplyDeleteKubrick did an enormous amount of research and in the process became somewhat of a Napoleonic expert himself - developing an enormous library, one of the best in the world, and even wargaming many of Napoleon's most famous battles with his own miniature figure collection. Making this film was Kubrick's obsession and right up until his death one he often said he wanted to complete. Tom Hanks is a good actor but would be ridiculously miscast as Napoleon (several feet too tall for a start -even if they did 'Hobbit' him!) Assante did a very good job as did the late Rod Stieger (in Bondarchuk's 'Waterloo' with Christopher Plummer as an equally convincing Wellington). I know - Tom Cruise! All he'd have to do is put on a few pounds and viola - no 'Hobbit' special effects required - save for the voice - Cruise can only sound like Cruise unfortunately!
The other thing is getting it right historically. In my opinion that will be a major challenge, particularly staging the numerous battles scenes without descending into pantomime, as many previous attempts at depicting Napoleonic warfare have. Nonetheless Kubrick's original film script is fantastic, very well written and gives, to my mind, a well balanced view of a very complex character. He may have 'covered Europe in blood' Dezzy, but the European monarchies themselves guaranteed that result, not just Napoleon. Not everything he stood for was bad - the Code Napoleon, the basis of French and indeed modern European law was written directly by Napoleon himself. Kubrick admired him and I think that comes through in any reading of the film script. It remains for Spielberg to realize that magnificent vision.
Sorry, I have been ranting and raving. Bit of a Napoleonic nut meself can't you tell?
But just how hot is that Eliza Taylor? ;-)
Cheers,
Doc
ah, Kubrick also had figure collection? :)) No, wonder. Hope Spielberg won't ruin someone's life's work. I'm not a fan of Kubrick, but I'm not sure I'd like anyone to finish something that was my own life's project.
DeleteI'd choose some French actor, maybe even Jean Dujardin who is currently top French star worldwide.