CleopatraMusical Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Here's the first good news of 2009! Variety reports that Hugh Jackman is now off the official wishlist for Cleo, the Steven Soderbergh musical that will reportedly star Catherine Zeta-Jones as the legendary Egyptian queen, and feature the music penned by Guided by Voices.

Jackman has apparently left talks not because of the concept, but due to a scheduling conflict. (Maybe it's Drive, since everything else has vanished from his IMDB page.) Ray Winstone remains in discussion to play Julius Caesar, and Zeta-Jones is still rumored to be Cleopatra herself.

I may be one of the few celebrating the news. I know Soderbergh is a master of taking preposterous concepts and turning them into cinematic brilliance, but a Cleopatra rock musical just sounds like a spectacularly bad idea. Jackman is a wonderful stage performer, and I've been dying to see him in a movie musical for years. (If you've never seen his pre-Wolverine turn in Oklahoma!, do yourself a favor and rent it now.) But not this one -- Soderbergh or not, it just sounds too campy to be believed.

Since Variety is stumped as to what caused the schedule conflict, I'll make a New Year's wish and hope his production shingle has decided to really get moving on that remake of Carousel. Jackman has had the rights to it for awhile, and to see him singing and dancing in that is ten times better than seeing him as a rocking Mark Antony.

In October, Eric D. Snider shared the wildly strange and awesome news that Steven Soderbergh was following uber-long biopics with a rock-singing Cleopatra in three dimensions. Soderbergh had set his sights on two unsurprising leads -- Catherine Zeta Jones and Hugh Jackman (Marc Antony). But that left one major hole to fill -- the sandals of Caesar himself.

According to MTV, that honor will be given to Ray motherfrakking Winstone. The thought of him playing the iconic figure in a rock opera -- it just sounds too good to be true. Anyhow, the filmmaker went on to say that this will be a period piece shot on backlots, and explained his motivations. It seems he was itching to do a rock 'n' roll musical like Tommy, but didn't like the options coming his way so he started researching. Musicals led him to female-driven plots, which led him to female protagonists and figures, and then Cleopatra. Jackpot!

It all sounds wonderful to me, although part of me sort of wishes that he'd hook up with Julie Taymor for this (can you imagine the visuals if he did?!). Best of all -- we shouldn't have to wait an eternity since Soderbergh plans to begin shooting Cleo this April. Are you ready to see Catherine, Hugh, and Ray don retro-wear and sing in 3D?