Got some conflicting news reported this morning from Entertainment Weekly who have caught up with Rome creator Bruno Heller. During an interview with the man who brought us one of the best TV series of all time that is Rome, he said that

“The movie, which picks up in Germany four years after the series ended.”

The reason I say conflicting information is that I interviews Kevin McKidd a few weeks ago during the press junket for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and he said he’s read the script and that it was going to be a stand alone version that wouldn’t actually follow the TV series. You can listen to my interview here. I’ve just listened back to the interview and he states “he’s read the first draft” so I guess things may well have moved on. 

Spoiler ahead!

The problem I have with it is that if they want to get Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) back they’re going to have to resurrect him as he died at the end of the second season.

I guess more info as we get it.

Earlier this week, I got to interview Kevin McKidd for his role as Poseidon in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. At the interview, I asked him what was going on with Rome the movie as it’s most definitely something that we’d like to see.

When I quizzed him on the status of the movie he said:

“Bruno Heller is really busy with The Mentalist at the moment. He’s written the draft and it’s really good but he’s working hard finding time to finish the script. He’s a control freak and although he writing staff have carried on with it, he needs to polish it off and complete it. It (a movie) would be this hiatus which looks unlikely timing wise or next hiatus hopefully.”

When I asked if it would follow the TV series McKidd said:

“It would be a stand alone movie that would satisfy the fans of the show but also be a stand alone event film that can be watched by anyone.”

This is great news that Rome is still in the pipeline somewhere as it was such a great show and I would simply love to see it on the big screen. The original series series of 12 episodes cost $100 million with HBO paying $85m and the BBC paying the additional $15m. With effective film budget, they made an amazingly accurate, beautiful series which with immaculate attention to detail. The set was built in Italy and was the biggest ever made for a TV series and covered 5 acres!

This information ties in nicely with the interview that Ray Stephenson gave with MovieWeb nearly a year ago. Glad to hear it’s still being though about but it would be nicer if we could have a finished script so that the project could get some movement.

Almost a year after Bruno Heller first hinted at a feature adaptation of his acclaimed HBO series Rome, actor Kevin McKidd, better known to fans of the film as Lucius Vorenus has been talking about the film. A lot.

In an interview with the New York Post’s Popwrap column McKidd talked about the script, saying “There is a script that is being shopped and it’s supposedly very good, I haven’t seen it, but I am definitely going to be a part of the movie“.

A day later he gave a bit more information during an interview with TV Guide.

“It’s happening. Bruno Heller, who’s now the creator of The Mentalist,has been talking to me about this idea of a movie. Sure enough, Bruno has finished the first draft, some people in the business have read it. He’s doing his rewrite now. The hope is that we’re going to try to raise the money and shoot it in the hiatus between Season 6 and Season 7 of Grey’s“.

As much as we hope that the film actually goes into production, we’re not holding our breath just yet. Despite the critical accolades for the series HBO and the BBC, co-producers on the series, decided to pull the plug after two seasons, reputedly due to the massive cost of filming each episode. Presumably any film would be hugely expensive, possibly prohibitively so, especially given the mediocre track record of TV spin-offs at the box office.

The other issue that the production will have to contend with is whether the script is suitably cinematic.

On the small screen Rome was able to balance political intrigue with small scale action perfectly. While it never had the budget to show the larger battles in a satisfactory fashion, the street fights and tavern brawls it featured were a perfect counterpoint to the simmering tensions present in the series. It’s unlikely that this limited action would carry a film.

Worse still for the production, the period of history immediately after the defeat of RomeMarc Anthony (the point at which the series ended) was relatively peaceful, with Augustus consolidating power, but nothing on the scale of the battles the second series touched upon.

Bruno Heller previously talked about using the “rise of the messiah in Palestine“ as a backdrop. The problem with this is that by the time Jesus started making trouble for the Romans, Augustus was long dead. Even if the film were to deal with the birth of the historical figure of Jesus it would still be set fourteen years after the end of the series.

We have contacted HBO and the BBC to try to get more details on the project. We’ll let you know what they’re saying as soon as they get back to us.