Napoleon Stanley Kubrick's Film That Never Was Made

Did you know that Stanley Kubrick had planned to do a movie about Napoleon? Kubrick completed a lot of research, he claimed to have read five hundred books on the subject. He even had penned a script which you can read here and was planning on filming in France and Romania.

This film was his main focus after 2001, but never was filmed because of low box office numbers for competing films plus the high cost of production. Luckily fans of Kubrick are left with a collection of documents, photos and designs related to the film. 

A draft of the Napoleon production outline and a letter sent Audrey Hepburn decilining the offer of the role appear on Letters of Note. These documents can be seen in the tome Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, by Alison Castle.

The cool thing about the document is that the director states  “It’s impossible to tell you what I’m going to do except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever made.” Check it out below:

 

While this film sounds pretty damn amazing, I take comfort in knowing that Kubrick decided to direct one of my personal favorties A Clockwork Orange. The years of research on Napoleon were not wasted, Kubrick was able to use portions of his research on Barry Lyndon. 

Napoleon was on Kubrick's mind long after that, but when his production pace slowed with age the film never ended up getting made.