It’s been a long time since Joaquin Phoenix donned a laurel crown for Ridley Scott and made us all hate the ever-loving crap out of him in Gladiator, but the duo are looking to strike gold twice with Phoenix taking on the role of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in Napoleon. The trailer for the epic historical film, which comes from Sony and Apple, just dropped, and Napoleon looks to be one of Scott’s bigger swings and one that’s going to actually hit.
In case you fell asleep in history, have never heard a cultural reference to the man, or missed out on watching Abel Gance’s revolutionary 3-hour-long silent film on the man in film class, Napoleon is the story of the self-proclaimed emperor of France, who turned France into a would-be empire through brilliant strategic warfare and a massive ego. The film seems to be treating him as the hero of the piece and focusing on his love affair with Empress Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), the reported love of his life despite (spoilers) their marriage eventually ending. Hero is probably too strong a word, however, given Napoleon’s brutal tactics and penchant for ruthlessness, but you definitely get the feeling that there’s at least some admiration here from Ridley Scott.
The film also stars Tahar Rahim as Paul Barras, Ben Miles as Caulaincourt, Ludivine Sagnier as Theresa Cabarrus, Matthew Needham as Lucien Bonaparte, Youssef Kerkour as Marshal Davout, Phil Cornwell as Sanson “The Bourreau,” Edouard Philipponnat as Tsar Alexander, Paul Rhys as Talleyrand, John Hollingworth as Marshall Ney, Gavin Spokes as Moulins and Mark Bonnar as Jean-Andoche Junot. The screenplay comes from All the Money in the World writer David Scarpa, who paired with Scott on that film as well.
Apple is clearly hoping that this will give its streaming platform another high-profile win with a big-budget movie. The streamer is looking to land plenty of prestige and nominations with films like this and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon this year, and judging from the Napoleon trailer, they may have gotten it. Then again, Scott can miss pretty big with his films, so we’ll have to wait and see if we have a new classic or another Alien: Covenant on our hands.
Napoleon will release in theaters on November 22 and then make its way to Apple TV+ at a later date.
