The Wonder Woman duo, already famous for bringing one of the world’s most famous fictional female icons to the big screen, will now spearhead a biographical drama film meant to do the same for a somewhat real life counterpart, Egyptian ruler Cleopatra. This was confirmed after an auction process for the movie rights was won by Paramount Pictures, over the likes of Netflix, Warner Bros. and Apple.
Deadline broke the news for the upcoming Cleopatra film, which will be produced by Charles Roven and Patty Jenkins, with Gal Gadot joining production duties on behalf of her own company, Pilot Wave Motion Pictures, alongside her husband Jaron Varsano. Laeta Kalogridis is set to be the executive producer and screenwriter for Cleopatra, with her resume already boasting movies like Shutter Island, Alita: Battle Angel and, funnily enough, 2004’s Alexander.
Gal Gadot is said to have come up with the idea for Cleopatra, which was birthed at Pilot Wave and then aggressively pitched by its team of producers over the last few months, leaning mostly on the back of Kalogridis’ early writing and research.
The story of Egypt's queen has been tackled before, of course. 1963’s Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor at the top of her game, was the most expensive production ever made back then, to the point where its massive commercial success barely compensated the absurd costs accrued by 20th Century Fox to finish it, almost single-handedly driving the studio to the ground.
Cleopatra is such a hot property that even Sony has had a project in the works for years that would bring her back, with the likes of Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga rumored to star in it, though there's not much more known about it than that. Wonder Woman was met with widespread positive reception for how it portrayed female empowerment, a feat largely attributed to the Gadot and Jenkins formula, something that will hopefully be replicated when telling Cleopatra's story.
Not everyone is excited about Gal Gadot’s self-casting as Cleopatra, as the news was met with certain pushback from critics pointing to the actress’ ethnicity as an issue. However, Laeta Kalogridis quickly fired some history lessons back at naysayers by highlighting Cleopatra herself was actually not Egyptian, but Macedonian Greek instead. She also took a moment to point out just how funny life can be by tweeting: “For the little Greek girl from central Florida who ran around in a cape pretending to be Diana of Themyscira, there’s only a LITTLE pressure here”.
Source: Deadline