Almost a decade after expressing his desire to develop a TV miniseries following Stanley Kubrick’s screenplay, Steven Spielberg has officially confirmed the series. Following the success of his 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick started working on a large-scale biographical film following the French Revolutionary leader, Napoleon Bonaparte. He did intense research for the project, from reading books to watching his existing features.
He wrote a preliminary screenplay and was ready to take extensive measures for its production. However, it was later canceled due to the excess cost required for the location filming. Steven Spielberg, who earlier worked with Kubrick, wanted to develop a miniseries following his screenplay and talked about it during his interview with Canal+ in 2013.
Steven Spielberg Working on Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon
Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon has reportedly been in the works at HBO for the last seven years. Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg, who expressed his desire to work on Kubrick’s lost project shared that the screenplay would soon be available on-screen. During the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, the Jaws director shared that he is “mounting a large production” for HBO following the late American filmmaker’s screenplay, Napoleon.
“With the co-operation of Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan, we’re mounting a large production for HBO on based on Stanley’s original script Napoleon. We are working on Napoleon as a seven-part limited series.”
The Ready Player One director shared that he wanted to adapt Stanley Kubrick’s script into a miniseries in 2013. The duo collaborated on the 2001 film, A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Kubrick worked on the project after acquiring the rights to the short story, Supertoys Last All Summer Long. However, he handed over the film to Spielberg in 1995 after working on it for almost 20 years.
The Minority Report director completed the production, and it was released in 2001. Spielberg’s The Fabelmans was released last year, and earlier said that he had no idea “what [he’s] going to do next.” However, he said that he loves to work and he will figure out what he could do next. And seems like the Lincoln director has found his next big project.
Steven Spielberg Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award
The 2023 Berlin Film Festival is honoring the 76-year-old American director with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He has described it as a “tremendous high point in [his] life.”
While talking to reporters, the West Side Story director said that he has always been interested in making movies, as he shared that whenever he found a “book or script” with an original idea, he always thought about how it would make a good movie. And that feeling led him to work on films.
His 2022 film The Fabelmans is also loosely based on his initial days as a filmmaker. He started working on the film during the early stages of the COVID pandemic. It has received seven nominations at the 2023 Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture.
The Fabelmans is available to buy or rent online and is expected to launch on Peacock later this year.
Source: Discussing Film
