Martin Scorsese’s “Wild” Historical Epic Was Scrapped Because Of Seth Rogen

A Martin Scorsese movie never saw the light of day because of Seth Rogen.

Rogen is a co-creator, co-showrunner, and star of The Studio, and as a cast member of Apple TV’s The Studio, Scorsese has worked with him in recent years. The Goodfellas director received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, and the show won a record-breaking 13 Emmys total. Years before this collaboration, though, Rogen directed and starred in Columbia Pictures’ The Interview, a movie that ultimately doomed a Scorsese project.

On the first episode of Tribeca’s Crafty, the filmmaker reminisced with his daughter, Francesca Scorsese, about how they were going to make a “wild” Cleopatra feature film starring Angelina Jolie. He shared that the movie was scrapped, despite having a finished script and Jolie fully aboard, as a result of the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, of which Columbia was a major part of, and which came about because of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s outrage over Rogen’s The Interview. Check out Scorsese’s comments below:

Remember we were gonna do Cleopatra at one point, and then they made fun of [Kim Jong Un], and he got mad and he blew up everybody at Columbia. Seth Rogen, right? And then he got mad, and [it] ruined Cleopatra.

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Remember we were gonna do Cleopatra at one point, and then they made fun of [Kim Jong Un], and he got mad and he blew up everybody at Columbia. Seth Rogen, right? And then he got mad, and [it] ruined Cleopatra.

Francesca remarked that she is still “so mad about” Cleopatra not working out, to which her father jokingly said, “Well, tell Seth, because they ruined everything. Just because Kim Jong Un doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

The Interview is a 2014 movie about two journalists who arrange an interview with Kim Jong Un and are then enlisted by the CIA to assassinate him. The North Korean government condemned the movie and was later deemed by the U.S. government to have been responsible for the 2014 Sony hack, which leaked documents about unreleased films, along with other private information involving employees’ e-mails, salaries, and details about their families.

Cleopatra was being produced by Columbia, which is owned by Sony, and was a casualty of the hack, with leaked documents preventing the movie from moving forward. It is far from the only project that was affected by the hack, including Drew Goddard confirming earlier this year that Spider-Man’s Sinister Six movie was canceled as a result of this. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was also scrapped, leading Sony to instead make the deal that brought the web-slinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Rearrange the movies into the correct US release order.

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While Scorsese’s historical epic with Jolie never happened, a Cleopatra movie starring Gal Gadot has been in development for years. Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins was originally going to reunite with Gadot and direct the film, but she later stepped back, and Kari Skogland was named the new director, with Laeta Kalogridis writing the script. There have been criticisms of whitewashing regarding Gadot’s casting, a criticism that is also discussed with the 1963 Cleopatra movie featuring Elizabeth Taylor in the eponymous role of the Egyptian leader.

As for Scorsese, he has kept busy as a director, producer, and actor in the 12 years since the hack, from directing The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon to starring in The Studio and Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. The next movie he’s the director of, What Happens at Night, is confirmed to have wrapped filming and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Mads Mikkelsen, Jared Harris, and Patricia Clarkson.