I don’t care what the final quality of the project might be; I want to see Cleo, Steven Soderbergh’s 3D Cleopatra musical with tunes by Guided By Voices, right now.
The cast has just become a lot more interesting with the addition of Ray Winstone as Julius Caesar. Can Winstone sing? Honestly, I don’t care. The whole project — which will feature Catherine Zeta Jone as Cleopatra and, if he signs on, Hugh Jackman as Mark Antony — is so insane that it probably won’t matter. (I’ve always thought that Winstone actually sang in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, but I’m not positive. His turn in the Beowulf video game is, um, pretty encouraging, though.)
Soderbergh also tells MTV that this is wholly a period piece, and that it will be shot on backlots, true old Hollywood style. And with respect to Guided By Voices providing the music, he explains how a desire to use Robert Pollard’s tunes led to a conversation with former GbV bassist Jim Greer, which in turn led to Greer penning the script. “He went away for like six weeks and wrote this great script! It’s like an Elvis musical in a way. It’s not serious. I mean it’s historically pretty accurate but its sort of like ‘Viva Las Vegas’ meets ‘Tommy.’”
Sold.