A great movie but maybe made at the wrong time ....1970 was very much the time of the peace movement. How about making it today ? If anyone thinks of Gettysburg you can see a wonderful movie too ! Any thoughts ?
shareIt's not a very good film. No studio in their right mind would remake this.
Historical "epics" are a niche audience anyway.
I think Bonaparte's occupation of Egypt would make a great movie. I've always been more interested in political and social histories over straight retelling of battles.
"Aw Dammit! Hot Bitches!"
Those who say that a remake is impossible because of the costs.
then its just a question of finding somebody with the money.
Gods and generals and gettysburg, both two great civil war movies, weren´t made because 2 money hungry moviemakers thought it would be profitable.
They were done because one man, Ted turner, had the money and the influence to make this project happen, and he knew from the beginning, that the movies wouldn´t be profitable, at least not upon initial release (now, with dvd and bluray, it might have sold enough copies to finally recoup the costs)
Such people still exist.
Its a shame that the new young billionaires like zuckerberg and co, aren´t spending a tiny bit of their money making a movie, or something like that.
The real problem while making the movies, would be to find an insurance who would insure such an operation like the big scale cavalry charge against squares of real men.
And yes, findind enough qualified riders would be quite difficult, in russia it was possible because the army still had cavalry units.
Today, few armys have them and usually just for ceremonial stuff.
Remake? Absolutely not. First off there is no need to remake a perfect film. Since it is all real extras and practical effects it is timeless. Secondly it would not even be possible to remake it with the same production values today. The director had a whole Soviet army division at his disposal. Had it been done today it would be CGI armies and it would end up with worse visuals since you can't substitute the real thing.
I also fear that a remake would butcher all historical authencity as most so-called historical epics tend to do.
Instead of a remake I would prefer a movie about Napoleon's other campaigns. I would be even more interested in a movie about the wars of Fredrick the Great or the Thirty Years War.
This film is far from perfect. The only people who would say it is are fiercely proud Brits who loved seeing Napoleon depicted as a whining prat and Wellington as the most nonchalant badass of all time.
Go watch s6e9 of Game of Thrones and tell me that you can't CGI a battle to look realistic. Waterloo fails to capture the mud and blood that is war (Cavalry charging around infantry squares and zero casualties???????), and the soundtrack is more suitable for a Blake Edwards movie of the same era.
But I agree that a film about his other campaigns or FtG would be a stellar idea. I'd like to see a front-to-back biopic about Napoleon's entire rise and fall. Probably one of the most interesting people to have ever lived yet he has several fewer movies about his life than *beep* Steve Jobs does. That's a crime, there.