Scorsese: Sony Hack Ruined His Cleopatra Project — SkimNews
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- Martin Scorsese said the North Korean state-sponsored Sony hack, launched in response to Seth Rogen’s 2014 film The Interview, “ruined everything” for his planned Cleopatra feature more than a decade after the attack.
- Cleopatra had a ready script and Angelina Jolie set to portray Cleopatra VII before the attack, with Scorsese saying they were “going” and describing the unrealized film as “really wild.”
- Kim Jong Un was the target of the retaliatory breach after The Interview mocked him; Scorsese said the leader got “mad” and “blew up everybody at Columbia.”
- The Interview, co-written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, follows James Franco’s Dave Skylark and Rogen’s Aaron Rapaport as the CIA recruits them to assassinate Kim Jong Un.
- The Studio featured Scorsese as himself in its debut episode, while Rogen’s studio-head character Matt Remick ends up responsible for Scorsese’s passion project getting axed.
Why it matters: For Scorsese and Jolie, the Sony attack prompted by the 2014 film The Interview left a script-ready Cleopatra VII project unrealized for more than a decade; in Scorsese’s account, Kim Jong Un “blew up everybody at Columbia.” The consequence is a passion project he says was still ruined when he discussed its fate with his daughter years later.
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