Steven Spielberg teases long-awaited Stanley Kubrick Napoleon miniseries
Could Steven Speilberg's Napoleon miniseries, adapted from Stanley Kubrick's legendary script, finally be on its way?
Aux News Stanley Kubrick
Steven Speilberg is a patient man. He famously waited years to make The Fabelmans, the Oscar-nominated film about his family. And he’s been waiting years to make Napoleon, a miniseries based on the script by Stanley Kubrick from the film he never made. Now that Fabelmans is out of the way, it sounds like there may finally be forward momentum on Napoleon too.
“With the co-operation of Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan, we’re mounting a large production for HBO based on Stanley’s original script Napoleon,” Spielberg teased at the Berlin Film Festival (per Deadline). “We are working on Napoleon as a seven-part limited series.”
Spielberg (who has ties to the late filmmaker through A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a movie Kubrick developed before handing the reins to Spielberg) has reportedly been involved with the Napoleon adaptation for at least a decade, with HBO on board for the last seven years, according to Deadline. Baz Luhrmann was one of the original candidates to direct the show, while Cary Joji Fukunaga’s name was thrown into the mix in 2016. Spielberg has not committed to directing the thing himself, despite his recent declaration that he’d like a piece of the “long-form series” action. Elsewhere in the press conference, he said he has “no idea” what he’s doing next as a director.
So, there’s still no talent attached to Napoleon, in front of or behind the camera. Really, there’s not much new news to this update at all, beyond possibly the number of planned episodes. Still, the fact that it’s being brought up at all might be seen as a good sign for those looking forward to finally seeing “the greatest film never made.”
Kubrick began work on Napoleon as he was completing 2001: A Space Odyssey, conducting extensive research into the life of Napoleon Bonaparte to write his 148-page screenplay (per the BBC). The auteur had plans to film on location in France and stage battle scenes with 50,000 extras, stating himself that it would be “the best movie ever made.” Unfortunately, he never got the green light from MGM, and pivoted to making A Clockwork Orange instead.
But speaking with the BBC in 2019, Harlan, Kubrick’s longtime executive producer, stated that a new medium would be the perfect way to bring his brother-in-law’s vision to life. “TV now is technically superb, and a series of many hours and chapters is the ideal format for Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon,” he stated then. “It will happen!” Well, we’ve heard that before.
35 Comments
I really hope he ends it with Napoleon waking up centuries after his death on St. Helena, being welcomed by glowing blue beings that offer to give him his deepest wish.
I hope he tells it from the perspective of two precocious children who are central to everything.
Absolutely. And they should need rescuing often and we’ll see Napoleon being distracted from the Russian campaign and having to leave his forces to go rescue them!
I hope his deepest wish is to help two doofuses complete their history project.
I hope there’s boobs.
Well said
Don’t be silly. It will end with Napoleon holding his glowing finger to Wellington’s heart and saying “I’ll be right here.”
“My God, it’s full of Prussians!”
With the way he turned the ending of A.I. into sentimental nonsense, I’m not looking forward to this. Though I am looking forward to young Nap growing up dealing with his parents’ divorce in suburban Corsica.
Kubrick came up with the ending to A.I. Also, if you think it was sentimental, you either didn’t understand it, or have a screwed up notion of sentimentality.
It’s dreadfully sentimental, I don’t care that the human race has horrifically gone and been replaced. The way its shot, the puppy dog eyes and faux innocence that David displays, the use of fairytales, the mother, its all designed to make you feel something for someone who isn’t there. They’re not real. It doesn’t matter that Kubrick always intended the story to work that way, he’s have done it in a less sappy way than Spielberg for sure.
Yep, there is that old myth again that the ending to A.I. was not Kubrick’s.
So excited for HBO’s biggest tax write off of all time.
Great! Now it can both Kubrick’s AND Spielberg’s Waterloo.
isn’t his next project bullitt with bradley cooper?
Spielberg: Dude, retire. Kubrick: Come back to life and resume making movies and stuff.
Which one of those is more likely?
Trick question. The answer is “neither.”
Okay, but if we bring Kubrick back to life as a zombie and he ends up killing people and eating their brains instead of directing movies, that’s on you.
Worth the risk.
You forgot “Luhrmann: Jump off a cliff.”
I love A.I., but even if I didn’t, if he doesn’t direct Napoleon himself, his participation is basically moot. Can’t wait.
Napoleon . . . MINI-series . . .HAH! I see what has been done here!
Am I the only one who added “Dynamite” after Napoleon?
Neato
Sure, although I submit that Kubrick’s genius was not his script writing.
edgy stuff!
If I don’t hear Waterloo by Abba over the opening credits and Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks over the closing, or vise versa, I’m not interested.
With Baz Luhrmann directing, you just might!
So two observations:1) They say they would be working with Kubrick’s script, but a 7 episode mini-series seems like it would be a lot different from a 2 hour movie script.2) I would think Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation would be VERY different from Kubrick’s or Spielberg’s.
There is an absolutely zero chance that Kubrick’s Napoleon would’ve clocked in at only 2 hours. The manuscript may have only been 148 pages (which would usually come out to about 2 1/2 hours) but he wanted this to be an Old Hollywood-style epic which means a minimum of 3 hours. One of his main inspirations, the 1927 silent film Napoleon by Abel Gance, is 330 minutes; another inspiration was the ‘60s Soviet War and Peace adaptation, which is 431 minutes spread across 4 parts. Also the book collecting his research material is over 800 pages, so the producers have plenty to work with.
With Jon Heder reprising?
Baz Luhrmann was one of the original candidates to direct the showOh, dear lord.
I’d certainly be interested in this, though I wonder to what extent this project will be deflated (or accelerated!) if Ridley Scott’s upcoming film with Joaquin Phoenix is successful.