In a recent article on Steven Soderbergh, I saw that he is planning a 3-D musical of Cleopatra, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Hugh Jackman.
Is this genius or madness? Any similar stuff like this coming down the pike or flushed down the annals of movie history? Or stuff that sounded ridiculous only to turn out brilliant?
Really really bad.
This will be the movie version of Cop Rock.
Nah, different Steven. Also, it should be easier to do a musical movie than to have a weekly musical television show. Eli Stone sort of pulls it off, but they don’t do original numbers, and I don’t think that they’ve had a musical aspect every week.
I think it’s the 3-D part that really makes me go “Huh?” Although if he can convince Catherine Zeta-Jones to get naked for it then the 3-D would make a lot of sense. Okay, Hugh Jackman naked and 3-D if he’s more your type. Or maybe Sasha Grey (sp?) who was in one of Soderbergh’s recent projects and previously did pr0n.
Pirates of the Caribbean. Everyone thought a movie based on a Disney ride was doomed to failure.
I don’t have stereoscopic vision, so 3-D doesn’t work for me and always seems stupid.
But a lot of people love musicals, and the subject is certainly dramatic enough. So it’s just a matter of how well it’s done. Most musicals are ridiculous ideas, but sometimes it works.
A naked or loinclothed Hugh Jackman works for me. In 3D you say? Even better.
If it were anyone but Soderbergh, I’d say bad idea.
I’ll watch anything with Hugh once.
I suspect that this movie would be a Once viewing.
He is becoming the king of pedestrian fare flicks.
I actually think it has the possibility of being really entertaining. Well, other than the 3-D thing.
It all depends on the execution. Nothing about the description guarantees a thing, and it’s impossible to know whether the film will be good or bad just by reading it.
It’s probably a challenge, but until you see the final product, all bets are off.
Sounds more like Baz Lurhmann than Soderbergh, but unless the buzz is horrendous, I’ll probably see it.
Hugh was in The Prestige. For that, he will always have my respect.
And I would love to see a scantily clad Catherine Zeta-Jones in 3D.
But Cleopatra???
I loved Cop Rock. I still miss it. Every so often I find myself singing the song from the funeral and gettting misty-eyed.
I had a discussion, not about this film specifically, but about 3D movies in general with a friend of mine recently.
One of the reasons that 3D was so present in the 50’s was due to the fact that televisions were becoming more and more common, and thus people weren’t going to the movies as much. Film distributers and movie theaters needed a gimick to get people to come and see the movies.
My suspicion is that, with Netflix and other such services going gangbusters, and with movie prices (with some small exceptions*) getting higher and higher, theaters are once again looking for the ‘gimick’ that will get people to come out and watch.
*Exception: Local prices are $10, but the theater near my friends’ home is 5, 3 if you come in before 6 o’clock. How do they stay in business? We have no idea.
Why not Zenobia (Cleopatra’s descendant, a bedouin queen who defeated Rome [before they defeated her] and whose story 1- isn’t as well known 2- has a happier ending [she managed to live out her life in luxury after her defeat])? Or Boudicca (the British Celtic warrior queen whose had little treatment in film), or Justinian and Theodora… Cleo in film as she was in life has just been done way too many times.
Or better yet, “Untitled Hugh Jackman/Catherine Zeta Jones project featuring loincloths and gratuitous nudity”. I’d totally go see it.
I’m not sure you can do a credible musical ina story with a crucial scene involving two girls being gang-raped. Which is not to say that Andrew Lloyd Webber wouldn’t try…
Lloyd Webber would probably show that the Roman rapists were all misunderstood people who hadn’t had enough love ala Phantom, but perhaps he could borrow from Gypsy to give Boudicca a great “Oooooh, Mama’s gettin’ pissed/Mama’s gonna deal/Mama’s on the move/Mama’s gonna kill… Romans” number.
A few years ago Baz Luhrmann (who I mention because this sounds like a Baz project more than Soderbergh) had an Alexander the Great project with a rock soundtrack and Leonardo DiCaprio attached. Apparently nothing ever came of it (and thanks to Oliver Stone’s totally understandable box office disaster it’s probable that nothing ever will).
Suggested songs for a 3-D Cleopatra musical:
Do the Sphinx (the 3D dance sensation)
Aunt Mama, Uncle Daddy, and My Brother My Husband
In the Desert the Mighty Desert My Sister Plots Tonight {chorus: Ar-si-noe…Ar-si-no-eeee…Ar-si-noe… Arsinoeeeeeee}
Caesar? I hardly even Know Her!
Rollin’ Out the Red Carpet
Oh Sole Cleo
Is that a Julius Seizure or are ya Just Happy to See Me?
Et tu Brute? (No I Ain’t Et, Has You?
Bargin’ In (you’ll swear the barge is coming straight at you)
Goin’ Deep Into Egypt
Marc This Down
Lights! Chimeras! Actium!
Asp in the Basket
The thing is, you never can tell. I remember Roger Ebert once writing something like it’s never what a movie is about, it’s how it’s about it.
I know! how about a comedy about the popular kids killing each other and making it look like suicide until one of them decides to blow up the school? Funny right? (right! Heathers)
wait, wait, this is even funnier! A cop and a criminal team up to kidnap a baby, but then the baby gets kidnapped from them, but it’s Ok because everyone lives happily ever after and the parents understand and let the kidnappers go (Raising Arizona)
You just can’t tell