Reprising his Merchant of Venice partnership with producer/director team Barry Navidi and Michael Ratford, Al Pacino
has signed on to play Napoleon in an as-yet-unnamed biopic. Apparently
playing the short, aggressive, exiled emperor has long been a dream for
Pacino, and he feels that Navidi and Ratford are the right people to
bring Napoleon to the big screen. (You know, since Abel Gance did such a
crappy job of it.)Interestingly/oddly, the film (which won't even begin shooting until 2006) will focus not on Napoleon's years in power or his time spent freezing in Russia (Personally, I think that would have been a great movie. Who doesn't like to see cold people eating horses?). Instead, it will explore the Frenchman's later years on St. Helena, where he apparently struck up a friendship with a young British girl. Inevitably, of course, the exiled ex-emperor became "infatuated" with the lass. Oh, come on. Someone please tell me this isn't just an excuse for yet another old-man-with-hot-young-girl movie.
categories Cinematical
