Alexander to be Great Again?

Dino De Laurentiis reveals that the Baz Luhrmann-directed version of the Alexander story is all set to go into production next year.

Feb 22 2005

Bumping into the brilliant Baz Luhrmann late last summer, Time Out grilled the 'Moulin Rogue!' director as to whether his Alexander the Great biopic would ever make it to the screen now that Oliver Stone was directing his own take on the story.

Baz said he'd see how Stone's interpretation turned out, but was confident that his own version would eventually get made.

Well, with Stone's much-maligned version tanking in the States, it seems that Luhrmann's 'Alexander' might yet see the light of day, and comments from outspoken producer Dino De Laurentiis at the weekend would seem to back that up.

Speaking to Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, De Laurentiis revealed 'We will shoot the film in one year's time, and it will be the Alexander that everyone has been waiting for.'

Luhrmann's version was originally scheduled to go into production in Morocco in early 2004, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead, but when Stone's own expensive epic was fast-tracked to the big screen, Baz backed down.

However, it now seems that the Australian director will finally get his long-planned project off the ground, with Leo and Nicole Kidman in the lead roles and the inimitable De Laurentiis ('King Kong', 'Red Dragon') producing.

'I don't want to hit out against Oliver Stone, who merits respect', De Laurentiis added on the subject of the rival project. 'But his picture was certainly flawed, and was missing the spine of a screenplay.'

With fighting talk like that, the aging producer will have to make sure that his own big budget version doesn't make the same mistake twice.