The legendary filmmaker has opened up about the collapse of his planned historical epic, revealing how a notorious 2014 cyberattack exposed explosive studio emails and disrupted one of Hollywood’s most ambitious productions.
Martin Scorsese has revealed that his ambitious Cleopatra movie starring Angelina Jolie was derailed by the fallout from the notorious Sony Pictures hack, jokingly pointing the finger at Seth Rogen and his controversial comedy The Interview.
The Oscar-winning director, 83, had been developing the historical epic with Jolie, 51, attached to portray Egypt’s last Ptolemaic ruler.
However, the project never reached production after the November 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures, which followed controversy surrounding Rogen’s film about a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, 42.
Recalling the abandoned production, Scorsese said in comments reported by Variety: “We were gonna do Cleopatra at one point, and then they made fun of [Kim Jong Un], and he got mad and blew up everybody at Columbia.”
He added: “Seth Rogen, right? And then he got mad, and [it] ruined Cleopatra.”
The filmmaker also confirmed that Jolie had been central to his plans for the historical drama.
He said: “We were gonna do it. Angelina Jolie. We were going. She was gonna be Cleopatra VII. It was gonna be really wild.”
Although Scorsese framed the incident humorously, Rogen, 44, was not personally responsible for the cancellation, and the director’s remarks do not establish precisely why the production collapsed.
The hacking scandal exposed thousands of confidential Sony emails, internal documents and personal information, causing widespread disruption throughout the entertainment company.
Among the leaked correspondence were messages exchanged between producer Scott Rudin, 68, and former Sony executive Amy Pascal, 68, concerning Jolie and the troubled development process.
In one particularly damaging exchange, Rudin described the actress as “a minimally talented spoiled brat”, a remark that subsequently became public through the leaked communications.
The disclosure intensified scrutiny of relationships between Hollywood executives and leading performers, while exposing disagreements about major productions under consideration at the studio.
Jolie had been associated with the proposed Cleopatra film for several years, with the project attracting attention because of its potential scale and the challenge of revisiting one of cinema’s most recognizable historical figures.
Scorsese’s involvement suggested an ambitious interpretation of the Egyptian queen’s political struggles and her relationships with powerful figures in ancient Rome.
Screenwriter Eric Roth, 81, who later collaborated with Scorsese on Killers of the Flower Moon, had been attached to write the screenplay.
The project would have marked a major collaboration between Scorsese and Jolie, whose career includes acclaimed performances in Girl, Interrupted, Changeling and Maleficent.
The controversy surrounding The Interview had begun before the cyberattack, with North Korea condemning the comedy’s depiction of an assassination attempt against its leader.
Sony initially canceled the film’s planned theatrical release amid security concerns, before arranging a limited cinema rollout and digital distribution.
The incident became one of Hollywood’s most consequential cybersecurity scandals, exposing sensitive business negotiations and private conversations between senior industry figures.
Scorsese subsequently continued his filmmaking career with projects including Silence, The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Jolie, meanwhile, later portrayed opera singer Maria Callas in the biographical drama Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín.
Martin Scorsese reveals how Seth Rogen ‘ruined’ Angelina Jolie’s Cleopatra movie in bizarre Hollywood scandal
