Variety. Shooting on the historical epic was delayed when the actors went on strike in July. But the Nov.
08.11.2023 - 05:47 / deadline.com
Before the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes shut down Hollywood and the production of Gladiator 2, Ridley Scott was able to shoot 90 minutes of the film, which he had been editing amid the strikes.
“With SAG-AFTRA and the studios back in negotiations, he was preparing to pick up Gladiator 2, which stars Paul Mescal, the moment the strike was resolved. ‘I could shoot on Monday,’ he said. (The talks fell apart a week later.),” reads the New Yorker profile on Scott.
Footage that was shot before the strikes includes a scene with baboons.
The profile continued, “In the meantime, he’d been polishing the 90 minutes he had, including a scene in which the hero fights a pack of baboons; he’d been haunted, he said, by a video of baboons attacking tourists in Johannesburg: ‘Baboons are carnivores. Can you hang from that roof for two hours by your left leg? No! A baboon can.’”
The Gladiator sequel is set years after the original film and has Mescal taking over the role of Lucius that Spencer Treat Clark portrayed in the 2000 movie. Pedro Pascal is also part of the cast and Mescal recently recalled running into him at LAX but “too afraid” to approach him.
“He came up and just seemed so genuine,” Mescal told Esquire, in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike. “I’m really looking forward to hanging out with him.”
Although Mescal was not able to give too many details about the film, which has been halted due to the strikes, he did say, “I think it’s really well written and it pays homage to the first one, but it’s very much something that I think I can step into and make comfortably my own.”
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Variety. Shooting on the historical epic was delayed when the actors went on strike in July. But the Nov.
Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Ridley Scott’s historical epic “Napoleon” may not have conquered the top spot in North America, but it emerged victorious at the worldwide box office. The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the infamous French ruler, debuted to $78.8 million, including $46.3 million internationally — enough to stave off the competition on global charts.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Despite being plagued by harsh reviews from French critics and a derisive retaliation by director Ridley Scott, “Napoleon” had a strong opening in France on Wednesday, grossing an estimated €868,000 ($946,000) from approximately 120,000 admissions. The figure, unveiled by Comscore France, includes about 8,000 tickets sold at preview screenings across France, notably in Paris where Sony Pictures held a lavish world premiere of the historical epic on Nov.
Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter It’s become a holiday tradition for Disney to release an animated movie around Thanksgiving, and this year is no different. “Wish,” a musical origin story for the Wishing Star that so many Disney characters have wished upon before, is expected to lead box office charts over the busy weekend. But it won’t be all Disney, all the time, like it was last year when two of the studio’s offerings, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Strange World,” topped the box office.
Ridley Scott has fired back at French film critics after they published a series of negative reviews of his new biopic, Napoleon.Despite receiving generally positive reviews by UK critics, several high-profile French publications have been less kind, with French GQ saying it was “deeply clumsy, unnatural and unintentionally funny”, while Le Figaro likened it to “Barbie and Ken under the Empire”.In an interview with the BBC, Scott retorted: “The French don’t even like themselves”.“The audience that I showed it to in Paris, they loved it.”Joaquin Phoenix plays Napoleon Bonaparte in the film, which hits UK cinemas on Wednesday (November 22). It follows the French leader’s rise to power and his relationship with Empress Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby). Other cast members include Tahar Rahim, Ben Miles and Rupert Everett.It is not the first time that Scott has made headlines during the promotion for Napoleon.
Ridley Scott is a man who has earned the right to be a bit… brash with his comments. This is a right given to someone who has created multiple iconic films over the course of his career, literally inspiring generations of filmmakers with works like “Alien” and “Blade Runner.” So, when critics start taking him to task because of “Napoleon,” he clearly couldn’t care less.
Zack Sharf Digital News Director Ridley Scott is shrugging off the negative reviews coming out of France for his new historical epic “Napoleon,” which stars Joaquin Phoenix as the infamous French emperor and Vanessa Kirby as his wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. Reviews are all over the place for the biographical drama.
Ridley Scott has been typically dismissive of critics taking issue with his forthcoming movie Napoleon, particularly French ones.
To the surprise of no one, eternal curmudgeon Ridley Scott doesn’t buy into the superhero movie hype. In a new interview with Deadline, the director said he isn’t “a superhero fan” and has “been offered” to make several but always turns them down.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Ridley Scott-directed historical epic “Napoleon” is set to get a release in mainland Chinese theaters next month. The Apple Original Films and Sony Pictures’ title has received approval for import into China and release in a Dec. 1 slot, Sony said on Thursday. Per a Sony synopsis, the film “details the checkered rise and fall of the iconic French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix.
2024 is a big year for the “Alien” franchise, with Fede Álvarez‘s “Alien: Romulus” hitting theaters on August 16, 2024. But what about Noah Hawley‘s long-gestating “Alien” TV series for FX? Not according to TheWrap, with Hawley telling the outlet that show will air “somewhere in the in the first half of [2025],” given strike-related delays.
Sony has just released a the first trailer for a brand new superhero movie, Madame Web. Based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, the movie stars Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades Of Grey) and Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus) among others.Directed by SJ Clarkson and written by Jessica Jones writer, Claire Parker, the movie centres around Cassandra Webb, portrayed by Johnson, a paramedic working in New York City.
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that the reunion of director Ridley Scott and “Napoleon’s” leading man, Joaquin Phoenix, is a rich, layered, and satisfying offering. There is alchemy at work that transfixes the audience as much as any of the epic battle sequences. Directed and produced by Scott, “Napoleon” is based on the true story of Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Phoenix.
Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic A chyron that appears at the end of “Napoleon,” after two and a half hours of turgid spectacle and grime-encrusted showmanship, informs that France’s self-anointed emperor oversaw 61 battles, listing the six that director Ridley Scott opted to stage for our benefit … or for his own glory. The director’s motives are unclear, much like those of Napoleon Bonaparte as played by Joaquin Phoenix, who gives a mumbly and oddly anti-charismatic performance as the figure — short, slender and something of an outsider, owing to his Corsican birth — who came to rule France after the revolution.
Excusez-moi?Earlier, when the strategic genius is frustrated by rival Britain’s naval might, he whines like a little boy who’s been bullied at recess, “You think you’re so great because you have boats!”Depicting one of the most consequential figures in all of European history as a sourpuss clown who crazily rattles off nonsense is a brow-raising choice by Scott, screenwriter David Scarpa and the always peculiar Phoenix.After all, a person can’t very well forge a half-million-square-mile, multi-continental empire by being a total moron.But that’s what this Napoleon is — a fool. Viewers spend most of the two and a half hours (Scott says his Apple TV+ cut will be a merciless four) laughing mockingly at the guy who commissioned the Napoleonic Code.
There are ghosts on and off the screen in Ridley Scott’s 28th feature, chief among them being Stanley Kubrick’s unrealized biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican military strategist who inveigled his way up through the ranks of the military to become the leader of France not once but twice. That at the age of nearly 86 Scott has stepped up to finish what Kubrick couldn’t is something the British director will no doubt relish. But though his take on the story is his own, there’s still something elusive about Bonaparte’s story that doesn’t make a coherent whole: as is consistent with history, Scott’s Napoleon is a lover and a fighter, an incongruity that leads to sharp changes in tone and a restlessly episodic narrative that can be overwhelming in its dates, names and places.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Holding the world premiere of Ridley Scott‘s “Napoleon” in Paris was a no-brainer for Sony Pictures’ chairman Tom Rothman, due to the film’s French DNA and its subject, the famous French emperor (played by Joaquin Phoenix). “Where else could you begin the worldwide rollout of ‘Napoleon’ than France?,” said Rothman on the red carpet of the event at the Salle Pleyel concert hall, where Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby and Tahar Rahim were able to attend thanks to the end of the 118-day SAG-AFTRA strike. But the French theatrical bow comes with a downside for Apple, which financed the pricey movie and will now have to wait 17 months to launch the movie on its service due to France’s strict windowing rules.
Paris’ Salle Pleyel hosted the world premiere of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon this evening, rolling out the red carpet for the epic that stars Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. Scott, the two leads and actor Tahar Rahim all were in attendance for the unveiling of the film from Apple Original Films and Sony. Watch Scott introduce the pic below.
EXCLUSIVE: Ridley Scott unveils Napoleon today at a lavish world premiere in the 2,500-seat Salle Pleyel concert hall in Paris. He is 85 but seems ageless, and Scott is already plotting to quickly resume production on Gladiator, the second installment of his film that won five Oscars including Best Picture. He’s got 90 minutes of footage, fully edited, and needs that much more. He expects to be shooting within two weeks, and he’s already got his next movie slated for around March. Though he is keeping the details to himself, he acknowledged it’s period, with a script like perfectly distilled liquor, and two stars ready to join him in what he said is a bucket list project for him.
Napoleon movie has been shared – watch it below.The upcoming film from director Ridley Scott stars Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte. It follows the French leader’s rise to power and his relationship with Empress Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby).