Martin Scorsese revealed that his planned historical epic Cleopatra
starring Angelina Jolie was canceled following the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, which he blamed on the fallout from Seth Rogen’s comedy The Interview
and its depiction of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The Lost Script and the Star Power Behind Scorsese’s Epic
Hollywood spent years trying to get a major cinematic adaptation of Egypt’s last pharaoh off the ground. The project found strong momentum when producer Scott Rudin developed an adaptation of Stacy Schiff’s biography Cleopatra: A Life for and with Angelina Jolie at Sony Pictures. The film had reached an advanced stage of development before its sudden collapse.
During a nearly 40-minute conversation with his daughter Francesca for Tribeca’s Crafty
interview series, Martin Scorsese detailed how close the production actually came to rolling cameras. The script was finished, and the creative team was ready to move forward with the historical project.
We were going to do it. Eric Roth was ready on the script; everyone was ready. It was Angelina Jolie; we were going.
Martin Scorsese, filmmaker
Jolie was attached to play Cleopatra VII in what the director described as a wild, high-budget vision. Eric Roth, who penned the screenplay for Scorsese’s 2023 feature Killers of the Flower Moon, had completed the working draft.
How the 2014 Sony Hack and The Interview Derailed Columbia Pictures
The production’s momentum vanished in the wake of a massive cyberattack against Sony Pictures in November 2014. The FBI later attributed the breach to the North Korean government. The hackers targeted the studio in retaliation for The Interview
, a satirical comedy directed and co-written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg that centered on a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The cyberattack flooded the internet with confidential emails, employee records, and internal studio documents. In Scorsese’s view, the resulting chaos crippled the executive leadership team at Columbia Pictures that was backing his film.
Martin Scorsese says he nearly directed a ‘CLEOPATRA’ film starring Angelina Jolie before the infamous Sony hack derailed the project:“Seth Rogen made fun of Kim Jong Un [in ‘The Interview’] and he got mad and he blew up everybody at Columbia. And then they ruined Cleopatra. We… pic.twitter.com/0MZDaxKu7z
Seth Rogen made fun of Kim Jong Un [in ‘The Interview’] and he got mad and he blew up everybody at Columbia. And then they ruined Cleopatra.
Martin Scorsese, filmmaker
While Rogen was not directly responsible for canceling the picture, the leaked communications exposed intense behind-the-scenes friction. Among the public disclosures were private email exchanges between producer Scott Rudin and then-Sony co-chair Amy Pascal, in which Rudin criticized Jolie harshly, calling her a minimally talented spoiled brat
according to reports on the leaked messages. The resulting public fallout poisoned studio relationships and effectively killed the project.
Decades of Unrealized Adaptations and Subsequent Directors
Scorsese’s revelation highlights just how close a major iteration of the historical epic came to production compared to other attempts over the last two decades. Hollywood studios have pursued various iterations of the material since Elizabeth Taylor starred in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1963 Cleopatra film.
Martin Scorsese Reveals He Nearly Directed Angelina Jolie’s ‘Cleopatra’ Before Sony Hack Derailed It: “Tell Seth Rogen; They Ruined Everything” https://t.co/GTLkzn8Ypz pic.twitter.com/FUTFXmqGsh
A revolving door of acclaimed filmmakers was tied to the property at different points during its long development cycle at Sony and beyond.
- James Cameron considered directing a PG-13, 3D adaptation in 2010 before shifting his focus to the Avatar sequels.
- Filmmakers David Fincher, Paul Greengrass, and Ang Lee were all under consideration or attached to direct the studio’s adaptation during various stages of development.
- Denis Villeneuve was linked to direct a later version of the project in 2017 following a script rewrite by David Scarpa in 2016.
Subsequent reports also linked Villeneuve to a potential version of the film starring Zendaya as the Egyptian queen. However, with Villeneuve committed to directing Dune: Part Three
and the next James Bond film, the odds of a new adaptation moving forward remain low.
Behind the Jokes and What Remains Unresolved
Despite laying verbal blame on the comedian during his interview with Francesca, Scorsese and Rogen have maintained a friendly relationship in the years since the digital breach. Scorsese even made a cameo appearance playing himself in the debut episode of Rogen’s Apple TV series The Studio, where Rogen’s fictional studio-head character ultimately axes one of Scorsese’s passion projects.
Whether the hack was the sole catalyst for the film’s demise continues to be a subject of debate among film historians and industry observers. As Gold Derby notes, creative tensions regarding director choices, producer friction, and disagreements involving the star had already created obstacles for the production long before the breach brought those arguments into public view.
Martin Scorsese‘s “Cleopatra” never came to fruition, and he says the Angelina Jolie-starrer was nixed because of Seth Rogen and the Sony hack.“We were gonna do Cleopatra at one point, and then they made fun of [Kim Jong Un], and he got mad and blew up everybody at Columbia,”… pic.twitter.com/uYx2NONJOo