Hannibal
It was announced years ago that the Netflix historical epic about the ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal would be pairing Denzel Washington back up with his frequent collaborator, Antoine Fuqua. Washington has worked with the director for The Equalizer trilogy, as well as The Magnificent Seven remake and on the film to feature his Oscar-winning performance, Training Day. The script was said to be written by Gladiator writer John Logan. Fuqua, Washington, Erik Olsen and Adam Goldworm were all on board to produce the film. Jeremy Lott and Frank Moll are slated to executive-produce the period piece.
Too expensive?
It was recently reported that Netflix was putting a halt to the project in pre-production when the budget started to spiral out of control. Insiders say the studio and producers are working to get the movie back on track and resolve the budget issues. The project has gotten fairly far ahead, as Netflix has been meeting with actors who will star alongside Washington, and Fuqua and his crew have been scouting locations in Italy. However, both sides agreed that it was probably best to slow things down so the project could get off on the right foot.
Now, according to World of Reel, cinematographer Robert Richardson has said that the project is “effectively dead.” It was being rumored that the budget for the Hannibal film swelled to over $200 million.
Passion Projects
Washington has had his eye on this story for over 20 years. However, at the time, Washington was unable to commit to the grand production as he would not prefer to be away from his family for the extensive period that it would take to make a film such as this. Obviously, now that his children are older, and John David Washington is even carving out his own star in Hollywood films, Denzel can now return to the epic story of the historical figure. Interestingly, Vin Diesel has been vocal about doing his own Hannibal passion project for almost the same length of time. Diesel’s project would meet many logistical concerns and stall multiple times as well.
It has been originally reported, “In this version, the film will follow The film covers the pivotal battles he led against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. The film falls under Fuqua’s production company, Hill District Media’s first look deal with Netflix.”
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