A big-budget trilogy of epic films about the rise and ultimate fall of Julius Caesar, from the studio behind The Hunger Games, is heading to multiplexes, reports Deadline.
Lionsgate, which also oversaw the final two movies in the blockbuster Twilight saga, has optioned Conn Iggulden’s Emperor series of novels with the initial aim of making three films. Also titled Emperor, the planned triptych will detail Caesar’s childhood friendship with Marcus Brutus, the pair’s rise to power, and the Roman leader’s final betrayal on the floor of the senate at the hands of his lifelong comrade.
“We’re looking forward to working with an incredible creative team on Emperor, a great property based on a unique and compelling series of books,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group co-chairs Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger. “A fresh and inventive coming-of-age story about the young Julius Caesar and Brutus set amid the drama, intrigue and passions of ancient Rome, we believe that Emperor will be a big, crowd-pleasing motion picture event for global audiences.”
Mark Canton, of Atmosphere Entertainment, and Gianni Nunnari, of Hollywood Gang Productions, who are producers of Emperor alongside White Horse Pictures’ Nigel Sinclair, said the trilogy would combine the “sweep of 300 with the intrigue of Game of Thrones”, adding: “This is the part of the story of the mighty Julius Caesar that nobody knows – his emergence alongside Brutus as young powerhouses in Rome, a fresh and contemporary retelling of their rivalries, passions and jealousies, captured in a movie with breathtaking action, spectacular visual effects and epic scope.”
A script by a somewhat concerning multitude of screenwriters is in place for the first movie. Cast Away and Apollo 13’s William Broyles Jr heads the list of names, but Stephen Harrigan, best known for the 1990s television miniseries Cleopatra, Pride, Prejudice and Zombies’ Burr Steers and The Grey’s Ian Mackenzie Jeffers have also had input. No director has yet been named, and casting details are thin on the ground.
Lionsgate’s announcement of a trilogy tallies with a recent propensity for Hollywood studios to unveil expansive plans for multiple film sagas from the beginning, where once executives might have shot a single movie and paused to see if it achieved box-office success before launching plans for a sequel. Disney’s new ream of Star Wars films, Marvel’s Avengers superhero movies and Warner Bros’ Fantastic Beasts are all examples of series that have been planned as multiple instalment sagas from the beginning. The most extreme example is perhaps Guy Ritchie’s Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur, which is predicted to be the first of a half dozen films about the once and future king of England. That plan is beginning to look rather hubristic after the English director’s latest attempted franchise-launcher, big-screen spy reboot The Man From UNCLE, struggled at the box office with just $54m worldwide in its first two weeks.
British author Iggulden has written five Emperor novels, but it is likely the film trilogy will focus on the first four, which were published between 2003 and 2006. A belated 2013 sequel, The Blood of Gods, dealt with the aftermath of Caesar’s death.
• This article was amended on 2 September 2015 to include Nigel Sinclair as a third producer of Emperor.
