Screenwriter Brian Helgeland reveals plot details for his canceled Cleopatra movie. The story of the Egyptian ruler has been adapted to the screen countless times, most famously (or infamously) in the 1963 Cleopatra film starring Elizabeth Taylor, which experienced a troubled production and lost the studio money. Helgeland, who won an Oscar for 1998's L.A. Confidential, started writing a new Cleopatra script around 2011 with Angelina Jolie set to play the Egyptian queen and David Fincher attached as director, though the project never got off the ground. 4g2c4d

A fair amount of Gal Gadot Cleopatramovie news has been coming down the pipeline, both causing controversy and garnering a fair amount of anticipation. The famed ancient Egyptian queen has been depicted on the screen many times before but was most famously portrayed (and whitewashed) by actress Elizabeth Taylor in the eponymous 1963 historical epic. The latest actress to take up the mantle of Marc Antony's lover was Casualty's Adele James in Netflix's pseudo-docies Queen Cleopatra. However, it seems that the Egyptian Queen's story has a difficult time being told on the screen without creating controversy, as the docies was panned by critics.

Gal Gadot gives an update on her Cleopatra movie and explains it takes time to respectfully depict a historical figure such as Cleopatra. Gadot, who is best known for starring in the DC Extended Universe as Wonder Woman and in the Fast & Furious franchise, has been tied to Cleopatra since 2020. The movie was initially to be directed by Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins but has since been ed onto Kari Skogland. Over the past three years, though, updates of the epic movie on the Queen of Egypt have been few and far between.

Gal Gadot's Cleopatra movie is bringing back memories of a 60-year-old bomb that changed Hollywood. In 2020, Gadot was cast as Cleopatra in an epic film that would reunite her with Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, who was eventually replaced by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's Keri Skogland. Ever since, the project has been stuck in development hell, even switching studios from Universal to Paramount, though it remains controversial because Gadot, an Israeli actress, was cast as Cleopatra, an Egyptian queen, which has been met with accusations of whitewashing.Before the SAG-AFTRA strike, Gadot was on a press tour promoting her Netflix spy thriller, Heart of Stone, when she made some innocuous comments about her casting as Cleopatra and reinventing the role. However, the interview has reignited the casting controversy and given the current state of Hollywood, Gal Gadot's Cleopatra movie is giving people flashbacks to the 1963 Cleopatra film that was a massive bomb and changed the industry. Check out a few of the reactions below:

Though it's unclear where the movie sits in its development, Gal Gadot is sharing her excitement about the Cleopatramovie and bringing justice to its main historical figure. Gadot signed on to produce and star the latest biographical epic for the Egyptian queen in late 2020, with the initial plan to reunite with Wonder Woman's Patty Jenkins directing. Jenkins eventually shifted to solely a producer role to focus on future projects, leading to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's Kari Skogland g on to direct.

Kari Skogland's Cleopatra is now being eyed by Universal following its initial setup at Paramount. Some of Skogland's most notable credits come from television projects such as Boardwalk Empire, Vikings, The Americans, and The Handmaid's Tale, with her most recent being Marvel's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Skogland's first feature film since 2008, Cleopatra will star Gal Gadot as the historic Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt who managed an intricate relationship with the Roman Republic as the lover of Julias Caesar and later, Marc Antony. News of Skogland's involvement came last year following Patty Jenkins' exit as director, a decision reportedly made in part to focus on Wonder Woman 3 and Rogue Squadron.

The biopic Cleopatra will star Gal Gadot in the title role, though her casting has been a source of controversy, with some describing it as “whitewashing.” This description not only harmfully misunderstands the identity of Wonder Woman Gal Gadot, but also Cleopatra herself. Despite significant evolution in recent years, the film industry is still in need of improvement, as far as diversity and representation go, but the casting of Gal Gadot as Cleopatra is not an example of whitewashing.

Mohamed Diab's scathing analysis of how Wonder Woman 1984 depicted Egypt shows the enormity of Cleopatra's challenge. Given the widespread acclaim reserved for Patty Jenkins' 2017 Wonder Woman solo movie, 2020's Wonder Woman 1984 proved surprisingly problematic. Alongside the controversy that arose from Steve Trevor's out-of-body sex scene, audiences singled out Wonder Woman 1984's Egypt-based sequences for portraying the country in a condescending light and perpetuating outdated Hollywood stereotypes. It's a conversation that has found renewed relevance after Moon Knight director, Mohamed Diab, labelled the DCEU's interpretation of 1980s Egypt "a disgrace."

Gal Gadot will play the former queen of Egypt Cleopatra in an biopic and shares new details about how the movie will differ from previous versions. After several failed attempts to produce a new Cleopatra project, including an effort by Sony Pictures with Denis Villeneuve in talks to direct, Paramount Pictures won the opportunity in a bidding war. The Wonder Woman star takes over Angelina Jolie as the historical figure, who was attached to Sony's production for over a decade while it remained in development.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier director, Kari Skogland, has found her next endeavor as she takes over the director's chair from Patty Jenkins on Cleopatra starring Gal Gadot. With its initial pairing of Jenkins and Gadot, the Cleopatra film was picked up by Paramount Pictures after a bidding war that also saw Universal, Warner Bros, Netflix, and Apple in the mix. The studio feels they have a hot project on their hands and has been fast-tracking the movie since. The 1963 classic Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor was a massive undertaking that almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox, and new iterations of the film have been in development for years at various studios. But this Gadot-led flick seems to be the only one that will make it to a coronation.