NEW & FORTHCOMING
ANCIENT WORLD MOVIES
(Got a new item or an update? Please let Steven know!)
I. Current or Coming in 2010:
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Centurion opened in the US on August 27. Dominic West (top photo) stars as the captured general of the Roman Ninth Legion, destroyed by Picts north of Hadrian’s Wall in A.D. 117; Michael Fassbender runs for his life; Olga Kurylenko kicks butt. (The upcoming Tatum Channing vehicle The Eagle of the Ninth draws on the same historical setting; see item below). Watch an on-set featurette here. See a trailer and more at the official site. A sneak screening at SXSW in March resulted in a hilarious “non-review” you can read here.
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| Agora was finally released in the US this summer, exclusively at the Landmark Theatres chain; to find the theater nearest you, check this page at the Landmark site. See a trailer and much more at the film’s official site. Rachel Weitz stars as Hypatia, the scientist-scholar who ran afoul of the Christians in Egypt in A.D. 391. Directed by Alejandro Amenábar, the film features an extraordinary recreation of ancient Alexandria. (See Steven’s complete review at his his Top 10 Ancient World Movies page.) If you miss seeing Agora on the big screen, the DVD is scheduled for U.S. release on October 19. (Speaking of Hypatia, has anyone out there read the novels Lady Philosopher: The Story of Hypatia by Brian Trent or Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria by Ki Longfellow?) |
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| Jake Gyllenhaal plays Prince Dastan in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, based on the popular video game. The DVD releases on September 14. Ben Kingsley and Gemma Arterton also star. Steven says, “While this movie may not be a scholar’s view of 6th century Persia (sets include some Thai wats and bric-a-brac from your neighborhood Asian import shop), it’s still quite an eyeful (and I’m not just talking about the two leads). The movie brilliantly uses at least one device from Classical myth—a wicked poison shirt!” See more pix of Jake here. Watch a trailer here. |
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The Season One finale of Starz’s Spartacus: Blood and Sand aired on April 17; The DVD and Blu-ray sets release on September 21. Steven reports: “It’s all very porny and ultra-violent, with lots of demeaning sex and vulgar language and oceans of slo-mo blood spatter; imagine the bastard child of 300 and Rome.” Andy Whitfield plays the title role, but most of the heavy lifting in the acting department is done by John Hannah and Lucy Lawless as a husband-and-wife team of power-hungry patricians. There’s also a companion series of graphic novels (issue #1 at right) and a motion comic (see item below).
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To complement their new Spartacus: Blood and Sand series, Starz has launched a companion motion comic under the same title. See a trailer here. You can read the synopsis and download installments (beginning with Episode 1, “Upon the Sands of Vengeance”) at
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The Kraken has been released—on DVD! Clash of the Titans stars Avatar’s Sam Worthington as Perseus, the son of Zeus who matches wits with Medusa. (Harry Hamlin played the lead in the the original 1981 Clash of the Titans, which featured the last hurrah of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion special effects.) Director Louis Leterrier has talked about doing a Perseus trilogy. If you have news about a sequel, please let Steven know! You can also download the movie at
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Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, which kicked off this year’s crop of Ancient World movies, has released on DVD. Think Harry Potter with Greek gods—the studio obviously did, since the first Potter director, Chris Columbus, was assigned to direct. Steven loved it: “This movie boasts all the advantages of a big-budget Hollywood production—terrific special effects, excellent storytelling, and perfect casting. Uma Thurman as Medusa? Yessssss!” Logan Lerman plays the teen who discovers he’s the demigod son of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd of Rome). Sean Bean is Zeus, Rosario Dawson is Persephone, Steve Coogan is Hades, and Pierce Brosnan plays the centaur Chiron. The movie is based on the fantasy novel by Rick Riordan, first in series that’s insanely popular with younger readers. Steven is thinking this movie did not make enough green to merit a sequel...but if you have information to the contrary, please let Steven know! You can also download the movie at
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Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic is out on DVD. It’s an anime movie (with six different directors) based on a video game based on the first part of The Divine Comedy—and absolutely riveting to watch. The movie is surprisingly faithful to the original 14th-century poem and retains many of Dante’s references to Classical literature and famous figures from antiquity, including the Roman poet Virgil (seen here), who plays our hero’s guide on a harrowing journey through the circles of hell. See the trailer here. You can also download the movie at
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Joseph Morgan plays the title role in the miniseries Ben-Hur. Kristin Kreuk, Ray Winstone, and Alex Kingston (who played Boudica in Warrior Queen) also star. David Wyler (son of William, who won an Oscar for directing the 1959 Ben-Hur) produced. See a trailer here. The miniseries aired on CBC in Canada April 4 & 11 and (according to the Toronto Globe & Mail) offered “lots of sex, manly, bare-chested combat, a spectacular Roman battleship sequence, more sex, lepers and centurions, underdressed lady pagans, a murderous chariot race, and Christ Himself (looking suspiciously like Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski).” ABC is supposed to broadcast the minseries in the US; if you know the air dates, please let Steven know!
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Arriving on DVD (after years in the can): Little Hercules starring Michael Dolen, the child with a bodybuilder’s physique who enjoyed a flash of media fame a while back. Throw in Hulk Hogan as Zeus and Elliott Gould as Socrates, add Judd Nelson and Robin Givens, concoct a story about a child demigod in modern LA, and you’ve got a movie for the ages. (It was originally filmed in 3D, hence this weird-looking screen cap with Gould, who looks ready for his hemlock.)
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In Prisoners of the Sun, an archaeological expedition discovers a lost city beneath a pyramid and re-awakens the gods of ancient Egypt. A visitor to this site who saw the trailer suggests it “looks like a Mummy movie on Prozac.” Director Roger Christian won an Oscar for Star Wars art direction and a nomination for Alien (so far, so good), but also directed Battlefield Earth (uh oh!)—so is this heading straight to DVD, or straight to oblivion? If you have release information, please let Steven know!
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| How did Steven miss this? The Canadian animated series Class of the Titans debuted back in 2006, with tales of seven teenagers descended from ancient Greek heroes; they alone can thwart the nefarious schemes of the wicked god Cronos. It’s equal parts Percy Jackson + Clash of the Titans + Disney’s Hercules. The Season 1/Volume 1 DVD is now available; episodes can also be watched online or downloaded at Amazon. |
II. Coming in 2011 and Beyond:
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| Ralph Fiennes (who plays Hades in Clash of the Titans) will make his directing debut and play the title role in Coriolanus, Shakespeare’s tale of a Roman warrior driven from the city who returns to conquer it; only his mother and wife can hope to save Rome. (The story forms a major chapter in Steven’s novel Roma.) The good news: Gerard Butler plays Coriolanus’s enemy-turned-ally, Aufidius. Shakespeare scholars make much of the erotic sparks between Coriolanus and Aufidius; what sort of chemistry will we see between Fiennes and Butler? The bad news: Fiennes is making a “contemporary version” (i.e., not set in ancient Rome). You can see more pix here. |
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Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra? Pultizer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff”s Cleopatra: A Life will be published November 1, 2010; producer Scott Rudin has bought rights to the book and says a movie project “is being developed for and with Jolie,” according to USA Today.
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| Catherine Zeta-Jones as Cleopatra? Steven Soderbergh is set to direct Cleo, a 3-D musical for release in 2011. Although the story has been oft-filmed (most famously with the 1963 Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor in the title role and Richard Burton as Antony), this Cleo would be Hollywood’s first musical based on the star-crossed lovers. But don’t expect an Ancient World feast for the senses; the story will be transposed to 1920s America, with songs by the group Guided by Voices. Ray Winstone has been cast as Caesar; Hugh Jackman has been rumored for Antony. |
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Channing Tatum will star in the screen version of Rosemary Sutcliff’s classic novel The Eagle of the Ninth, about Roman soliders in Britain who venture north of Hadrian’s Wall to recover a lost eagle standard. Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald is directing from a script by The Last King of Scotland collaborator Jeremy Brock. Release date is February 25, 2011. Sutcliff’s book was previously dramatized by the BBC in 1977. For more Roman mayhem in ancient Scotland, see the items elsewhere on this page about Centurion and Mortis Rex.
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Look for a new movie version of Hercules based on the graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars, aiming for release in 2011. (After the muscular success of 300, it was inevitable that Hollywood would give us more visions of the Ancient World directly based on comic books.) Peter Berg (Hancock) may direct. Above: cover art for issue 5. At right: the complete graphic novel by Steve Moore and Admira Jiwaya.
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Portuguese TV star Diogo Morgado will portray Joseph in the drama Mary Mother of Christ; Camilla Belle will play the title role. Peter O’Toole (as Symeon) and Al Pacino (as Herod) will lend some star-power to the cast. Look for release in 2011.
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Look for Peter O’Toole to appear in The Eagle and the Cross, a drama about the 4th-century martyr Catherine of Alexandria and the emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion. It’s slated for release in 2011. (Shown here: O’Toole in a previous Ancient World role, King Priam of Troy.)
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Move over, Perseus! Henry Cavill (of Showtime’s The Tudors) will star as Theseus in Immortals (previously titled Dawn of War and War of Gods), an epic set in the world of Greek myth from director Tarsem Singh (who last ventured to the Ancient World with the Alexander episode in The Fall). The cast also includes Corey Sevier (seen here in Dragon Fire) as Apollo, Kellan Lutz as Poseidon, and Mickey Rourke as Hyperion, king of the Titans. Luke Evans, who played Apollo in Clash of the Titans, will graduate to the role of Zeus, king of the gods. Release date is November 11, 2011.
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| The Ancient World monster movie Mortis Rex (Latin for “King of the Dead”) is set to begin production in 2010. In 122 AD, a disgraced Roman warrior, sent to defend a garrison in remote Scotland from a spate of mysterious killings, must unite with the local Druids to vanquish a terrifying supernatural beast. The project is the brainchild of Hellboy co-writer Peter Briggs, who will make his directorial debut. The setting (Hadrian’s Wall and beyond) is similar to Centurion and The Eagle of the Ninth. Concept art above by Stuart Jennett. |
According to Variety, Spanish auteur Julio Medem (Sex and Lucía) will direct Pericles and Aspasia, an English-language film based on one of antiquity’s great love stories, between the 50-year-old Pericles, ruler of Athens in its fifth century B.C. heyday, and the 24-year-old Aspasia, a free-thinking, sexually liberated beauty who was also a skilled rhetorician. (Has anyone out there read the recent novel by Karen Essex about Aspasia, Stealing Athena?)
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In the works for 2012 is Jason and the Argonauts: The Kingdom of Hades, apparently based on the graphic novel of the same name, which follows the fortunes of the Argonauts after the quest for the Golden Fleece—essentially a sequel to the 1963 movie Jason and the Argonauts. See a preview here. (The same publisher, under the Ray Harryhausen Presents imprint, gives us Wrath of the Titans, a graphic novel sequel to the original 1981 movie Clash of the Titans.)
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III. In the Works • Rumored • On the Shelf:
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| Young Alexander the Great, about the conqueror’s teenaged years (think “Alexander 90210”), stars Sam Heughan (right) as Alexander and Paul Telfer (of Hercules and Spartacus) as Hephaestion. This movie has been in the can since 2007; has there ever been any DVD or theatrical release? If you have an update, please let Steven know! |
Early talk of Leonardo DiCaprio appearing in a new screen version of I, Claudius fell through, but the project appears to be ongoing, with director Jim Sheridan at the helm. Given that Sheridan has twice been nominated for directing Oscars (for In the Name of the Father and My Left Foot), and Daniel Day-Lewis starred in both of those movies, what are the chances Day-Lewis will not be in I, Claudius? (Derek Jacobi played the stuttering emperor in the BBC miniseries I, Claudius in 1976; picture at right.) Got an update? Please let Steven know!
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Variety reports: “After turning Homer’s epic poem The Iliad into the 2004 film Troy, Warner Bros. and Brad Pitt are teaming with director George Miller to adapt the Greek poet’s other masterwork, The Odyssey. Their intention is to transfer the tale to a futuristic setting in outer space.” Will Angelina play Penelope? Release is targeted for 2012. (Photo: Brad Pitt as Achilles on the set of Troy.)
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Will there be a feature film follow-up to the TV series Rome? Executive producer and scripter Bruno Heller has such a project in development with the working title Bona Dea. If all goes well, filming will take place in 2010 for release in 2011. The story broke here; read an update and watch a brief interview with actor Kevin McKidd (Vorenus) here.
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| Coming down the chimney one of these years? Nicholas of Myra is an independent feature about the original St. Nick. No, Virginia, not Santa Claus, but his ancient prototype who attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., shortly after Constantine the Great made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. The movie has been in production for a few years now, with no firm release date. Above: a shipboard scene. |
Gianni Nunnari, producer of Alexander and 300, has more irons in the Ancient World fire. Along with Immortals (see above), Nunnari is talking about a prequel to 300 (to be based on Frank Miller’s upcoming graphic novel about the battle of Marathon, Xerxes); a movie about the young Julius Caesar based on Conn Iggulden’s Emperor novel series; and Odysseus, in development. The latter is not the Brad Pitt futuristic Oddysey project (see the item elsewhere on this page). Will it be a full-blown Ancient World epic? If you have updates on any of these projects, please let Steven know!
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As recently as March, 2009, the web buzzed with talk that Scarlett Johansson would star in The Amazon Warrior, the tale of a gladiatrix who exacts vengeance on the army that destroyed her homeland, circa 200 B.C., with a screenplay by the team of Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain (scripters for Outlander and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans). But lately, no news. Got an update? Please let Steven know! |
The grapevine has been buzzing for years about John Boorman’s ambition to film Marguerite Yourcenar’s classic novel Memoirs of Hadrian. The last round of rumors posited 007 star Daniel Craig as Hadrian; no word on who might play Antinous, the young lover deified by the emperor after drowning in the Nile. For the ultimate in Antinous worship, visit The Sacred Antinous. To see videos about Hadrian by the British Museum, click here. Got an update? Please let Steven know!
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Vin Diesel long ago announced his intention to make his directorial debut and star as Hannibal the Conqueror, the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with elephants to menace Rome, working from a script by Oscar-winner David Franzoni (Gladiator, King Arthur) based on the novel Hannibal by Ross Leckie. (Victor Mature played the role in the 1960 Hannibal, and Alexander Siddig starred in a 2006 BBC telemovie; see item below.) Will Vin’s dream come to fruition? If you’ve got an update, please let Steven know! |
Finally located on US DVD: Hannibal, a 90-minute British docudrama starring Alexander Siddig, which first aired on BBC in 2006. With no fanfare at all, the movie appears as an extra on disk 3 of the DVD set Warriors (which also includes spectacular episodes about Spartacus and Attila the Hun.)
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Odysseus: Voyage to the Underworld premiered on SyFy Channel in 2008 and showed again in August 2009. Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep in The Mummy) plays the Greek hero in this “missing chapter” from The Odyssey with hunky Steve Bacic, a pair of stunning goddesses, and lots of flying monsters. If you know of a DVD release, please let Steven know. |
Once upon a time it was announced that Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski (The Pianist, Chinatown) would direct a big-budget screen adaptation of Robert Harris’s best-seller Pompeii. But Polanski eventually pulled out, deciding instead to collaborate with Harris on a screen version of the author’s political thriller The Ghost. Will Pompeii ever erupt on movie screens? If you have info on the current status of the project, please let Steven know!
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When in Rome...check out 3D Rewind Rome, playing in a theater near the Colosseum. The 30-minute virtual-reality guided tour of the city circa 310 AD includes a walk through the teeming Subura, a forbidden peek at the Vestals in their temple, and a gladiator combat with the emperor Maxentius presiding. |
For otherwise impossible-to-find DVDs, check out Maximus Media in Canada. Their historical catalogue includes The Last Roman (aka Struggle for Rome) from 1968, starring Orson Welles as Justinian; the uncut 9-hour version of the 1985 miniseries A.D.; and the 1972 Charlton Heston version of Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra.
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From the introduction to Seneca: Four Tragedies and Octavia, by E. F. Watling:
Cicero, at the festival celebrating the opening of Rome’s first permanent theatre, complained of the pathetic performances of old-fashioned actors past their prime, and of the spectacular ostentation which had been imposed on the old tragedies: “Who wants to see six hundred mules in Clytaemnestra or three hundred goblets in The Trojan Horse, or a battle between fully equipped armies of horse and foot?”
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What would Cicero have made of 300?
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From Achilles to Zeus: Stephen Moss, film writer for The Guardian, offers an A-Z guide to Ancient World movies. His spot-on entry for the letter S: “Slaves: Notable by their absence in films about Sparta, even though they were the bedrock of Spartan society. Presumably acknowledgment of Sparta’s large slave population would sit oddly with a portrayal of a heroic society that valued freedom...” Click here to read the entire alphabet.
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