The longer any given project stays stuck in the deepest recesses of development hell, the more you’re inclined to believe that it might be there for a reason. And yet, Gal Gadot remains determined to make Cleopatra happen one way or another, despite the fact nobody’s been able to pull it out of purgatory for over a decade.
It was only recently that producer Charles Roven confirmed the long-gestating historical epic was still on the cards, and despite the backlash surrounding both her status as star and producer and Egypt’s own distaste for titles revolving around the ruler that don’t toe the party line when it comes to history, the Wonder Woman headliner revealed to Flaunt that she’s as confident as ever it’ll happen.
“Cleopatra has been done a few times before in a brilliant way, but I know that our generation and youngsters know very little about Cleopatra. They know she was a seductive person who had an affair with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, but really when you read about Cleopatra and her life and legacy, and the empire she ruled, she was brilliant.
There’s so much that we’ve never heard about her and I just want to celebrate that. It’s a big task. I don’t want to [rush] making it – it’s something that needs so much thought and care because it’s Cleopatra. We have incredible writers working on the script – before and after the writer’s strike – like Laeta Kalogridis. It’s a beautiful script. We’re not rushing ourselves because you have to be responsible when you deal with such an incredible, iconic, legendary woman.”
Does it really need to? Arguably not, especially when there’s already a laundry list of names to have tried and failed to get another Cleopatra movie off the ground, but at the very least you can’t fault Gadot for sticking with it through thick, thin, and dueling strikes.