Will one of Steven Spielberg’s next projects be yet another Stanley Kubrick unfinished work?
Possibly, and one can easily imagine that mixed emotions greet this news. Bleeding Cool reports that Steven Spielberg plans to turn Kubrick’s unmade Napoleon movie into a miniseries for television.
With Robopocalypse postponed indefinitely, will this new project fill in the gap in the director’s busy schedule?
And do we want to see it happen? As much as I love Spielberg’s work (and this is an understatement), I found A.I. to be somewhat disjointed. And long. It’s been years since I’ve watched it from start to finish, but as I sat in the movie theater reading the credits, I remember thinking that it felt too much like a Spielberg film trying to be a Kubrick film. And I’ve never been a fan of the Kubrick films I’ve seen.
So what is his involvement with Napoleon? All we know is Spielberg has said, “I’ve been developing Stanley Kubrick’s screenplay, for a miniseries not for a motion picture, about the life of Napoleon. Kubrick wrote the script in 1961, a long time ago.”
Kubrick also heavily researched the project, but studios considered it too expensive to produce. But if Spielberg wants to make it, then it will be done. His role would likely be that of executive producer rather than director, and he would have to find time in between work on his other myriad projects, but it could be an intriguing series.