While speaking at the Berlin Film Festival, filmmaker Steven Spielberg revealed that he's developing a large-scale biographical drama series about Napoleon Bonaparte for HBO. The series -- which Spielberg has been working on for nearly a decade -- is based on a script and research prepared by late director Stanley Kubrick for a never-realized project.
- Spielberg and HBO plan to convert Kubrick's film script into a seven-part limited series.
- Kubrick started work on a Napoleon film after completing "2001" and did extensive research at the time; he had planned to shoot the movie across Europe with a cast of 40,000 soldiers.
- Kubrick ultimately abandoned the Napoleon project and jumped over to "Barry Lyndon" instead.
- Spielberg's film "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" was also based on a project that had been started and then abandoned by Kubrick.
- Ridley Scott is helming a separate Napoleon biopic featuring Joaquin Phoenix for Apple TV+.
