Will Angelina Jolie and James Cameron Team Up for 3D Cleopatra Biopic?

James Cameron and Sony Pictures Entertainment are exploring the very real possibility that he will direct Angelina Jolie in a 3D version of Cleopatra, an SPE adaptation of the Stacy Schiff book Cleopatra: A Life. Jolie is attached and anxious to make the movie. Scott Rudin, who acquired the book, is producer. The talks are serious but by no means conclusive yet. Meanwhile, Deadline's Nikki Finke reports that Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chair Amy Pascal decided to fast-track its PG-13 and 3D Cleopatra project after screenwriter Bran Helgeland wrote what was is being described as a "brilliant script deserving of epic treatment" all about "what the Romans took from Egypt". In addition, Pascal wants to own the Angelina Jolie franchise the same way it owns the franchises of Adam Sandler and Will Smith because "she's a real star who can open a movie by herself" and "she knows she was born to play this part" because it's the "greatest female heroine" that ever lived. Pascal is hoping for a start date in 2011 but has acknowledged that "it won't be cheap" and is calling this her Gone With The Wind  epic. Indeed, a project of this size and scope is a huge risk for any studio, especially considering how much attention will be focused on the production and the last time the story of Cleopatra was made into a movie. The Egyptian queen got her big screen closeup in the 1963 film with Elizabeth Taylor in the title role. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed the film, which started with a $2 million budget that ballooned to $44 million (the equivalent of over $300 million today) not the least because Taylor became ill and almost died. The production nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox, despite being the year's highest grossing pic with $26 million. However, with James Cameron as director, he has the ability to produce a huge worldwide spectacle where every penny will be on the big screen. He has several of his own projects in the works, including a title called The Dive, but there is no other outside project he is looking at but this one as he develops the Avatar sequel.

Stacy Schiff's biography peels away the layers to reveal the true Cleopatra, a much more interesting woman than the Hollywood version, and, as it turns out, a formidable queen after all, according to reviews. A Pulitzer Prize-winning American nonfiction author and guest columnist for The New York Times, Schiff digs up astonishing and rare facts about the queen that could make the film into an entirely new story. Schiff herself has said about Jolie as Cleoptra, "physically, she's the perfect look, and is hoping for Brad Pitt to play Mark Antony (just as Liz Taylor's then lover, Richard Burton, did in the 1963 epic). "Angelina Jolie radiates grace and power, exactly the qualities that Stacy Schiff finds in her biography of the most intriguing ruler who ever lived," the book's publisher, Little Brown's Michael Pietsch, told reporters.

As for 35-year-old Jolie, she has been a tomb raider and a spy and even a queen (she played Queen Olympias in 2004's Alexander.) But she has had a lifelong fascination with Cleopatra and has always wanted to play the Queen of the Nile. She once told reporters: "I haven’t done a historical epic of that nature and she’s always been fascinating to me because I feel like, as much of her story has been done big, it’s never been done accurately. Not that any movie can get history perfectly well. There is no universal truth to history in some films, but you can get closer and I feel there’s a lot that has been unexplord about her. But there's a lot that would have to come together for that to work." And, as recently as at Sony's Salt premiere in Hollywood, she told reporters "I would be honored" to play Cleopatra in an upcoming new biopic. "But," Jolie added, "we haven't gotten the script yet." But then Helgeland's screenplay came in. Scott Rudin bought the rights to the book envisioning Jolie in the role from the very beginning and later acknowledging that Cleopatra "is being developed for and with Jolie".

Since then, Jolie has been heavily involved in the project. In still another interview, Jolie said, "I will play it differently to Elizabeth Taylor, but I could never be as lovely as she was. We are trying to uncover the truth about her as a leader and not just a sex symbol which she really wasn't -- she didn't have many lovers, maybe only two, and they're men she had children with." Angelina has said she was stunned by what she learned when she started researching Cleopatra. "She was misunderstood and her life story was written wrongly. I always thought her life was very glamorous. Then I read her story and found a different side to her - that she was a mother, leader and an intellect who spoke five languages! Her upbringing also reflected her relationship with Rome -- all that is much more interesting than what she was summed up to be."

The Jolie project isn't the only Cleopatra film to make headlines in recent years. In 2008, director Steven Soderbergh reportedly began developing Cleo, a 3D rock musical version of the Egyptian queen's story with Catherine Zeta-Jones in mind for the title role. The film fell by the wayside. start it sometime next year

Cameron has done most of his directing at Fox with Titanic and Avatar, and he is hard at work on a sequel to the latter. As a producer, Cameron is making the Shane Salerno-scripted 3D reboot of Fantastic Voyage for Fox, but he is already working off campus, moonlighting at Universal as producer of At the Mountains of Madness, the adaptation of HP Lovecraft that Guillermo del Toro plans to direct in 3D.

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Brad Pitt hitches a lift then gets towed on the set of his new film

It seems like no one wants Brad Pitt to actually drive himself anywhere.

The 46-year-old actor was spotted on the set of his new film Moneyball hitching a ride in a golf buggy driven by a female assistant between shooting locations.

Brad looked none too pleased to be in the passenger seat as they whizzed through the set in San Pedro, California over the weekend.

Brad was then dropped off at his new form of transportation - a black pick up truck.

But he wouldn't be allowed to actually drive that either, as it was loaded on to a flat bed truck rigged with cameras.

Brad, wearing a black leather jacket and aviator sunglasses. jumped in the truck and pretended to drive it while cameras rolled.
Brad Pitt

Fake driving: Brad had to jump into a pick up truck loaded on a flat bed which was then towed round the set

In the film Brad plays Billy Beane, manager of the Oakland A's baseball team.

The biopic follows Beane and his successful attempt to put together a successful baseball team using computer generated analysis to draft relatively unknown players.

The film has been shooting over the summer in Oakland and Los Angeles and co-stars Jonah Hill, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Wright.

Ready for action: brad looked cool in a black leather jacket and aviator glasses

While Brad is busy filming his long term partner Angelina Jolie is on the other side of the world carrying out various foreign missions as part of her role as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador.

After completing filming on The Tourist with Johnny Depp, Jolie, 35 in France and Italy, the actress headed to Pakistan to draw attention to victims of the devastating floods that occurred last month.

She even took her two eldest daughters, Shiloh and Zahara along with her.

But despite the separation Brad and Angelina, who have been together for 5 years and have six children together, are still going strong.

The couple recently purchased a $39 million mansion in Italy - not something a couple would do if they were on the verge of a break up.

Angelina Jolie Pitt coming back from Europe with Shiloh wearing a wooden sword outside of the plane and army boots


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Jon Voight Gushes About Daughter Angelina Jolie: 'That's My Girl!'

After many years estranged, it appears as though the father/daughter relationship between Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie is becoming stronger by the day. The veteran Hollywood actor/director was one of the first to arrive on the red carpet for the Hollywood premiere of Jolie’s new action blockbuster “Salt” on Monday night – and was the picture of a doting dad.

“Angelina is like a circus performer in some way, she enjoys (doing her own stunts.) She’s athletic and she enjoys expressing her athleticism,” Voight told us with a big smile. “Sometimes I worry that it’s not wise (doing her own stunts) but she has her stunt girls that are very good, so I’m hoping that she doesn’t compete with them.”

At one point Voight turned around to examine the electrifying movie poster, which featured only Jolie’s name and a close-up of her steely, yet sexy glare.

“That’s my girl,” he said proudly.

SLIDESHOW: The Lovely and Talented Angelina Jolie

In addition to her dad, Jolie brought partner Brad Pitt and their children to the star-studded premiere (Pitt skipped the press line, claiming that it was his “night off.”) But while Jolie is proud of her work in the action flick, she isn't quite ready to let her young kids watch the violent film.

“I can’t show my kids movies where people are trying to kill me. They saw some of the clips and were a little disturbed by it. There was one part where somebody was tying my feet up and they got upset and didn’t like it,” Jolie explained. “But when they're older I think my kids are going to love this.  Mad (Maddox, her 8-year-old son) really wants to see it but he's just not ready yet.  He's not old enough yet.”

And while the thrill-seeking, Oscar-winning actress was completely comfortable hanging from 11-story buildings and jumping from one moving truck to the next while filming “Salt,” which centers around the quest to capture a CIA agent suspected of being a Russian spy, there is one part of life that ignites her inner fear.

“There is nothing I‘m afraid to do on camera, I'm only afraid of something happening to people I love,” Jolie said simply.

And despite being heralded as one of the sexiest women in the world, there was actually a day on-set in which the male crew members didn’t want to be by her side. Why? She was dressed (very convincingly, mind you) as a man.

“It was odd, because then you actually start to really think about ‘what is my internal man?’ You get really particular about how he does his hair, or what kind of an outfit he would wear, it is bizarre,” Jolie said of the experience. “When I dressed up in him and walked on set for the first time, the crew was so uncomfortable.  So uncomfortable.  The guys didn't want to stand near me, they just kept staring at me (as if to say) ‘stay away from me.’”

But while she may be adept at playing a man, rumor has it that Jolie is in competition with Catherine Zeta-Jones to play feminine Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor in an upcoming biopic of the legend’s life. Only problem? It was news to Jolie.

“I have never heard that before,” she added. “I don’t think anybody that can be better than Elizabeth Taylor, at being Elizabeth Taylor."

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