Denis Villeneuve is reportedly directing Cleopatra for Sony Pictures and Dune star Zendaya will play the Egyptian ruler.

According to the World of Reel, the screenplay was written by Napoleon writer David Scarpa based on the bestselling Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. The movie will supposedly start production in 2024.

In a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Scarpa said, “With Cleopatra … instead of doing the movie as the prestige picture — the three-hour, lots of pageantry, people with fans and English accents and all that stuff — [we] really treat it as a political thriller. Dirty, bloody, lots of people swearing and having sex and all of that other stuff and just treat it as a two-hour, lean, mean political thriller, full of assassinations, etc.  Just going the opposite direction from the way we think that movie is going to go.”

Cleopatra movie: Stuck in development

This version of Cleopatra has been in development for a few years now. In 2016, Angelina Jolie was set to star and Ang Lee to direct. At the time, Empire questioned Jolie's “ethnic suitability” for the role.

A lot has changed in the last seven years. Cleopatra, in the 2023 Netflix documentary Queen Cleopatra, was played by Adele James who is of mixed ancestry.

The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities stated that since it was presented as a documentary, it “requires those in charge of its production to investigate accuracy and rely on historical and scientific facts.”

Bas reliefs and coins from Cleopatra's time period depict her as a light-skinned woman, which echoed her Macedonian Greek heritage. While Egypt is indeed in the African content and that there was “a great diversity” among Egyptians due to the kingdom's international nature, ancient Egyptians still looked like contemporary ones.

Zendaya, also a light-skinned biracial woman, as Cleopatra would repeat the same supposed mistake by Netflix. However, as the rumored Villeneuve film is not presented as a documentary, she might be given some leeway.