Rupert Sanders To Direct 'Napoleon'

Briefly: Napoleon is a name that carries serious weight in the film world, not only because of the French leader's status as a notable general and 11 years as Emperor of the French. His film cachet comes from the Abel Gance film of 1927, which innovated many filmmaking effects and even used a three-projection system to create a widescreen triptych for the film's final reel. Additionally, Stanley Kubrick spent years working on a Napoleon biography that never came to fruition.

But Napoleon Bonaparte is too significant a figure to stay dormant in Hollywood forever, and now Warner Bros. is working on a new biopic about the leader, produced by Gianni Nunari (300) and scripted by Jeremy Doner (AMC's The Killing). Rupert Sanders, who moved from commercials to the director's chair of Snow White and the Huntsman, then to tabloid pages for his dalliance with Snow White star Kristen Stewart, has been set to direct.

THR says the film will take "a Scarface-like look" at Napoleon Bonaparte. That suggests that the real-life events that led out of the French Revolution and into Napoelon's rule and program of European conquest will be told as the dramatic ascent of one man of steely will and scant inhibitions, with (naturally) the application of excessive force.