Spyros Skouras was a practical man with a dream. As a finance-minded studio executive who made his bones in the industry as a frugal theater owner during the Depression, Skouras was looking for a safe bet when he asked producer Walter Wanger to remake the story of Cleopatra on a budget of $2 million. It didn’t work out that way.
Nearly 60 years after Elizabeth Taylor rode into Rome on a sphinx, the gaudy, extravagant, and moribund epic that is Hollywood’s most iconic Cleopatra remains the stuff of legend—and perhaps hellish nightmares for studio execs with greenlighting powers. What was intended to be a by-the-numbers remake of a 1917 film, shot at cost on Fox’s already vanishing backlot, instead became the most expensive international production of its age: a movie with two Alexandrias, two directors, two Antonys and two Caesars, and one highly demanding Cleopatra. Indeed, Taylor was the...
Nearly 60 years after Elizabeth Taylor rode into Rome on a sphinx, the gaudy, extravagant, and moribund epic that is Hollywood’s most iconic Cleopatra remains the stuff of legend—and perhaps hellish nightmares for studio execs with greenlighting powers. What was intended to be a by-the-numbers remake of a 1917 film, shot at cost on Fox’s already vanishing backlot, instead became the most expensive international production of its age: a movie with two Alexandrias, two directors, two Antonys and two Caesars, and one highly demanding Cleopatra. Indeed, Taylor was the...
- 6/12/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
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