According to Variety, Hugh Jackman has backed out the role of Marc Antony in Steven Soderbergh’s head-scratchingly intriguing 3D rock musical “Cleo” due to scheduling conflicts. The picture is still in the financing stages of pre-production and will reportedly cost $30 million.
Ray Winstone (“Sexy Beast”) is rumored to be in talks to portray Julius Caesar and Catherine Zeta-Jones (“Traffic”) is set to star as the titular character, marking her biggest role since god knows when. The script for “Cleo” was written by James Greer, who is a former bass player for the once-defunct Guided By Voices, who are providing the music for what has been described as both an Elvis-style musical and influenced by The Who’s “Tommy” movie musical. Seriously, who knew “Clambake” would’ve been something of an influence on anything by one of the U.S.’s premiere film auteurs? Not us, that’s for sure.
Robert Pollard, lead singer/songwriter for GBV, also wrote music for Soderbergh’s infamous “day & date” simultaneous DVD/theatrically-released indie flick, “Bubble.”
Jackman can be seen next as the host for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony and in this summer’s requisite comic book blockbuster, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”. Oh, and he was in “Australia”, which nobody saw. Other than that, other potential conflicts that barred Jackman from starring in “Cleo” aren’t known at this time. Though Jackman’s next project may or may not hold much interest to us, expect us to report more on “Cleo” as this weird and ambitious project rolls towards production. [via Variety]