The controversy over Cleopatra’s inappropriate casting isn’t the only time this has happened. When Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra in 1963, the same problem engulfed this movie as well.
Before the SAG-AFTRA strike happened, Gal Gadot was on a promotional tour for her spy thriller that will be showing on Netflix, Heart of stone. On that occasion, Gadot talked about her role as Cleopatra of her, in 2020 Gadot was chosen to play the very popular Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra.
The film will reunite him with the director Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins, who was eventually replaced by Keri Skogland. But since that switch, the epic about the Queen of Egypt has stayed afloat, despite switching studios from Universal to Paramount.
Gal Gadot’s interview about her role as Cleopatra revived a casting controversy in which an Israeli actress played the Queen of Egypt. Previously, the role of Cleopatra had caused controversy and anger from the Egyptian government because in the Netflix miniseries, Cleopatra was played by black actress Adele James.
It seems that this time history is repeating itself and the situation is reminiscent of the situation in the 1963 movie Cleopatra. cleopatra it was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starred Elizabeth Taylor.
The epic film became a sensation in its time due to its extravagant production budget and also the many dramas that occurred in the production process. From the beginning, the production of Cleopatra was not easy because the original director, Rouben Mamoulian, was fired and replaced by Mankiewicz.
Additionally, the script writing underwent several rewrites, so production was halted. As soon as filming began, the cast and crew suffered from many serious illnesses due to the extreme heat in Italy, even Elizabeth Taylor’s case of pneumonia was near fatal to her.
Furthermore, her romance with co-star Richard Burton, who played Mark Anthony, became a sensation and brought even more negative attention to the film. This problem was compounded by the presence of complicated production sets and costumes, and ultimately inflated the production budget.
The situation of the Cleopatra filming process finally changed the new approach to cinema in Hollywood. Now this problem is also experienced by many movies like Fast X, Indiana Jones: Dial of Fate and the recently released Mission Impossible, partly as a result of rising production costs due to the pandemic.
Although this new Cleopatra movie doesn’t have a significant impact later on, it does bring back bad memories of the 1963 Cleopatra movie.
