‘Cleo’ Unites A-LIst Talent For World’s Finest Batshit 3-D Musical

It’s long been rumoured that Steven Soderbergh keeps a checklist in his wallet — a tattered index card on which he’s scrawled dreams nurtured since before his sex, lies and videotape breakthrough nearly 20 years ago: “win an Oscar,” “make a four-hour Socialist biopic,” “work with a porn star,” and alllll the way at the bottom, “shoot a completely fucked-up 3-D musical version of Cleopatra.” Finally, with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Hugh Jackman in talks to star, he might be that much closer to crossing off that last Impossible Dream.

Variety reports that Soderbergh will follow his current film The Girlfriend Experience with Cleo, a $US30 million project with music provided by Guided By Voices and a script by GBV’s bassist James Greer. No one seems to know how or even if this news squares with the Liberace biopic Soderbergh is plotting with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, but we admit we’re a little less intrigued by Cleo knowing that Jackman would not, in fact, play the Egyptian queen. And surely, in a sleek, dark loft somewhere in Australia, a sleepless Baz Luhrmann is wondering why he didn’t think of this first.

• Soderbergh to make 3-D ‘Cleopatra’ [Variety]