How Russians prevented Stanley Kubrick from making an epic movie about Napoleon

Ridley Scott's recently released ‘Napoleon’ disappointed quite many history buffs. People, frankly, regret that, so far, no one has managed to skillfully transfer the story of the great Corsican onto the big screen.

But, back in the 1970s, a worthy movie could well have been born. One of the most talented directors in the history of cinema, the creator of ‘Spartacus’ (1960), ‘Full Metal Jacket’ (1987) and ‘2001 Space Odyssey’ (1968) Stanley Kubrick was preparing to shoot a large-scale movie about Napoleon, with Jack Nicholson as the emperor.

Sergei Bondarchuk (L) and Rod Steiger during a break in the shooting of the Soviet-Italian film 'Waterloo'.

Unfortunately, the ambitious project was not realized. The reason for this was the box office failure of the Soviet-Italian movie ‘Waterloo’ by Sergei Bondarchuk in 1970.

The epic historical blockbuster by the Soviet director still amazes audiences with impressive battle scenes with the participation of a huge crowd (the Soviet army provided 15,000 soldiers). However, that year, the movie was extremely unsuccessful in wide distribution.

Photo from joint Soviet-Italian film Waterloo.

Producers of Kubrick’s ‘Napoleon’ were afraid of a repetition of this sad fate and immediately halted production. The director still tried to revive the project for some time, but, eventually, gave up.

Kubrick later realized some of the developments from the never-made movie in his historical drama ‘Barry Lyndon’ (1975) and even in the psychological thriller ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999).

Film director Stanley Kubrick is seen on the set in the 1975 during production of the film 'Barry Lyndon'.

Nevertheless, to the delight of historical movie fans and lovers of Stanley Kubrick's work, Steven Spielberg and HBO are now shooting a mini-series titled ‘Napoleon’ based on the great director's script.