Martin Scorsese finally addressed the real reason why his planned Cleopatra movie, starring Angelina Jolie, never happened.
The legendary filmmaker discussed the cancelled project during the first episode of Tribeca’s original series Crafty and blamed the fallout on the 2014 Sony hack.
Martin explained that the controversy surrounding Seth Rogen’s comedy The Interview had unexpected effects on other projects at Sony.
The 2014 film showed a fictional plot of attempting to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And surprisingly, around the same time, thousands of Sony emails got leaked by hackers.
Looking back, Martin remarked, “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.”
He added, “Seth Rogen, right? And then he got mad, and [it] ruined Cleopatra.”
Although Rogen was not directly responsible for the cancellation, the hack exposed private emails between the film producer Scott Rudin and Sony executive Amy Pascal.
And in one exchange, Scott described Angelina as “a minimally talented spoiled brat.”
“We were gonna do it,” Martin recalled. “Angelina Jolie. We were going. She was gonna be Cleopatra VII. It was gonna be really wild.”
