Total agreement, though, that if they’re going to do a follow up movie to a dead HBO series it should be DEADWOOD, which ended with lots of unresolved plots and unlike the ensemble that was ROME had a breakout star.
On the extras in the DVDs DEADWOOD creator David Milch said he’d planned to bring on Zeljko “If HBO films it, he will come [unless it’s Rome]” Ivanek as William Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller’s black sheep father. William really did live in Deadwood for a while under an assumed name and was basically a con-man, fake healer [a sort of mystical chiropractic] and a literal “you’ve heard the term but he was the actual bonafide real deal” snake oil salesman among other things. His son J.D. was already rich by this time (not the richest man in America or anywhere near but well on his way) and knew his father was still alive but generally told people he was dead, which would be interesting drama- you’re a con-man down on your luck when your obvious pigeon is the super-rich son you abandoned when he was a kid, but what’s your angle… (IIRC Rockefeller had a brother at Standard Oil who was pretty rich as well).
Anyway, the character got merged a bit with Brian Cox’s old theatrical troupe manager when Milch learned there wouldn’t be another season. I love Brian Cox- one of my favorite actors, the man’s brilliant- BUT his scenes in DEADWOOD were a waste of his talents and time that could have been spent on other plots since his story arc ended in mid-air.
So, the Rocekfeller character could already be a good basis. Milch’s also mentioned before that since DEADWOOD burned to the ground a couple of times the unavailability of the original sets wouldn’t be a problem. Move it to 1882 and you could let Oscar Wilde visit (pity Fry’s too old to play a 28 year old Wilde anymore) or Sarah Bernhardt; I’m not sure if either actually visited Deadwood but they visited similar places and it’s a light enough liberty to take with history. So there’s plenty of room for a DEADWOOD movie.
I can’t really think of where they’d go with a ROME movie. I think it might be interesting if they remade I CLAVDIUS- not that the first wasn’t brilliant but it’d be neat to see it done with a budget- Derek Jacoby could play Augustus and Sian Phillips could conceivably still play Livia if you got her daughterto play the younger character. Unfortunately ROME’s greatest historical faults were screwing the poochus in such a way as to make I CLAVDIVS impossible to tie in (e.g. Livia has one son, not two, and Octavius has no daughter) unless they’d retcon- be fairly easy actually, dialogue alone might do it.
Before the speculation gets too fast and furious, the article says:
Which would make it what… 19 BC? I suspect they’ll play fast & loose with the times, and/or skip around, and the climactic thing will be the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, with Pullo & Vorenus having some heroic part in the battle, with one dying to save the other.
They played pretty fast and loose in the series. Niobe (Mrs. Vorenus) had a baby when Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC; months after the Battle of Actium- or about 30 BC- the kid was about 10 years old. Similarly she passed off the child as belonging to her 13 year old daughter, who was about 21 when the show ended.
Historically they had some whoppers as mentioned above, but none moreso than the omissions from the Julio-Claudian family tree. Also, the real Atia was considered a “model of propriety”, remarried very soon after her husband died, and was dead long before her son became emperor, BUT the character worked so great that I’m not complaining.
For anyone who hasn’t watched ROME on DVD it has possibly the best DVD extra of all time. It’s a feature called ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME that gives ‘pop up video’ style bits (not as annoying as pop-up-video though) about Roman history and culture. It adds a lot to the series- if a character is praying it will have a pop up explaining what the prayer is and who the deity is and why they’re praying to him/her, etc., or if a sum of money is mentioned it will pop up with “This is more than Pullo would have earned in 2 years”, or if an object is shown it will explain what it is (ancestral masks, larariums, scythes, etc.). It’s well worth watching just for that.
Historical inaccuracies and all though the thing I loved about ROME was that unlike Ben Hur and other epic movies it seems to get the attitudes right. These people are intelligent (or unintelligent depending on the character) but they don’t think with 21st century mindsets: not all people are created equal, there is absolutely nothing wrong with slaughtering or enslaving non Romans, polytheism is just good sense, bloody sports are just good entertainment, etc… Nobody wants to reform it into DR. QUINNUS- even the most brilliant are products of their environment, which is something that’s far more important for believability than historical accuracies. (I retcon the family tree omissions with "well, Vorenus and Pullo wouldn’t have any idea that Octavian has a daughter named Julia or Livia another son named Drusus or much care less if they did, so let’s just assume the other kids are away at ‘Avia’s Seven Hills Day Care’ and leave it at that.
Let’s not forget that the first season essentially implied that Caesar was killed because Servilia was scorned by him. They make her the Lady Macbeth of her son.
And yeah, they used the same actresses for Vorenus’ daughters over a period of at least 10 years. Vorena the younger was perpetually locked into her 10 year-old body.
Still, it’s probably my favorite TV series of all times. I only wish they would continue it.
