Famed director Stanley Kubrick may have died in 1999, but a never-produced screenplay from the director of such classics as Dr. Strangelove and The Shining will come to fruition as an HBO miniseries produced by Steve Spielberg and possibly helmed by Gatsby“s Baz Luhrmann.
According to Deadline, Luhrmann is in discussions to direct the project about famed French emperor Napoleon. Steven Spielberg made headlines while heading the jury of this year’s Cannes Film Festival when he announced plans to resurrect Kubrick’s unfinished screenplay and use it as the basis for a miniseries.
In an interview with French television network Canal, Spielberg discussed a letter Kubrick had written to studio executives in 1971 promising his Napoleon biopic would be “the best movie ever made,”; and the screenplay has become somewhat legendary among film buffs as “the greatest movie never made.”;
Although a deal is reportedly still a long way off, Deadline notes that the Kubrick Napoleon project has become HBO’s highest priority, and Luhrmann is being courted by Spielberg himself.