Soderbergh to make 3-D ‘Cleopatra’ among his many interesting projects

Director Steven Soderbergh is making some interesting film choices. We very recently reported Soderbergh’s directing “The Girlfriend Experience,” choosing porn star Sasha Grey to play a $10,000-a-night call girl in his latest film effort. We now have word (from Variety) for his next directing effort, Steven Soderbergh is plotting a 3-D live-action rock ‘n’ roll musical about Cleopatra. And he is courting Catherine Zeta-Jones to play the Egyptian queen and Hugh Jackman to play her lover, Marc Antony. Great casting choices but I would get a lot more exited about this if it were to be packaged as a Broadway play instead and no 3-D needed. But instead this will be a $30 million “Cleo” film, which will be shopped for financing and distribution within the next two weeks.
The music has been written by the indie rock band Guided by Voices, and the script is by James Greer, a former bass player for the band and an author.

While Soderbergh has recently done a spate of wildly different projects, this one will be his first full-blown musical. Soderbergh, is about to release the Benicio Del Toro starrer “Che” and already wrapped Matt Damon feature “The Informant.” Soderbergh is also prepping a Richard LaGravanese-scripted Liberace film at Warner Bros., with Michael Douglas attached to play the entertainer and Damon to play his companion, who sued him for palimony. I I think with Soderbergh, the proposed cast and the rich material, this Liberace film is going to be very good.