24 July 2002
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Luhrmann & De Laurentiis Winning the Alexander Race
Variety says that the team of director Baz Luhrmann and
producer Dino De Laurentiis believe they will win the race to make a sweeping epic biopic
of Alexander the Great, and hope to start shooting in January.
They have a greenlight from Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, along with the
cooperation of a movie fan named Mohammed VI, who happens to be the 39-year-old king of
Morocco and who will contribute some 1,500 members of his army to the production, says the
trade. That King is also building a studio which will house the production that could cost
north of $140 million.
Oliver Stone had said he intends to start his Alexander biopic Oct. 16, first starring
Heath Ledger, but now with Colin Farrell, with funding coming from Intermedia. Martin
Scorsese had announced his Alexander movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but now is intent
on first making a movie about Howard Hughes with DiCaprio.
Luhrmann is working closely with scribe Ted Tally on the script, which is based on novels
by Valerio Manfredi. The director has yet to cast Alexander, but there's speculation that,
if the Scorsese and Stone versions are aborted, one of the stars of those projects may
surface in his film.