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Gallic producer Philippe Maynial has a new project set up at Babylone Prods.: the E10 million ($13.8 million) “Bonaparte in Egypt.”
“Bonaparte” was one of the biggest projects being moved at Berlin’s CRC Co-Production Meeting. Pic focuses on the general’s spectacular Egypt campaign, begun when he was dispatched in 1798, with 55,000 soldiers, to secure the route to India. Based on a 45-page presentation, “Bonaparte” will take in Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of the Pyramides and his attempt to bring the Enlightenment and Revolution to Egypt; Bonaparte traveled with 300 scientists. “It’s a contemporary subject. We again have a civilization fighting a backward Muslim society,” Maynial said. “The Americans are facing the same problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. But instead of bringing mathematicians, scientists and artists, they bring weapons. You cannot defeat a country if you don’t bring civilization,” Maynial added.
