When Stanley Kubrick tried and failed to make a film on Napoleon before Ridley Scott
Kubrick tried to see every film that was ever made on the subject, including old films like Abel Gance's Napoléon and the Soviet film series War and Peace. But
- Entertainment News
- 2 min read
As Ridley Scott gears up for the release of his Joaquin Phoenix starrer film Napoleon, it must be noted that many other filmmakers have tried in the past and failed to finish a project on the emperor. One of them was the legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.
Kubrick watched every film on Napoleon before starting his project
Stanley Kubrick, who had began making films at the age of 25, was always obsessed with the notorious emperor Napoleon and his life from his early years. After the critical success of his 1968 movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, Kubrick finally got around to seriously consider the idea of making a film on Napoleon.
According to reports, Kubrick tried to see every film that was ever made on the subject, including old films like Abel Gance's Napoléon and the Soviet film series War and Peace. But Kubrick, disappointed by the quality of these films, became even more determined to make his own film on Napoleon now.
Kubrick began his process by writing a preliminary screenplay draft, which has since become available on the internet for all the fans and cinephiles. Additionally, Kubrick even created a card catalog of all the places and deeds of Napoleon’s inner circle when his empire was at its peak.
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Waterloo's failure caused financers to back out of Kubrick's project
As part of his recce, Kubrick zeroed down on several locations in France, in addition to regular studios in UK, to shoot his historical. Kubrick was so obsessed with getting everything right about this project that he had enlisted supported of the Romanian People’s Army, and the officers had committed 40,000 soldiers and 10,00 cavalrymen for the battle scenes.
However, Kubrick’s ambitious scale for once proved to be the undoing for his project. Following the commercial failure of Waterloo, another film on Napoleon by Sergei Bondarchuk which especially focused on the infamous battle that cost Napoleon his rule over France, financers decided to back out of Kubrick’s film as well. And although Kubrick’s next film Barry Lyndon too was a historical period drama, Kubrick never pursued Napoleon, the film that was once his dream project.