Steven Soderbergh’s Musical “Cleo”

The recent announcement that Steven Soderbergh is going to be busting out a 3-D rock musical based on Cleopatra starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Hugh Jackman and composed by Guided By Voices took a lot of people aback, but it also put grins on their faces because Cleo is a crazy fun idea. Soderbergh elaborated a little more on the question of ‘why?’

“I’ve wanted to do a musical my whole career. I’ve been developing this on my own quietly, and I’m hoping to get it together for next spring. They’ve got great voices I’ve seen them live and they’re amazing. Now we need a Caesar. It’s supposed to be fun – you’re supposed to have a real good time. I’m really excited about it.”

Ceasar Octavian, the guy who had it in for Antony and Cleopatra in their later years, not Julius Caesar, the guy who had it in Cleopatra in her younger days. This is going to be very interesting.

Check out Soderbergh’s prior collaboration with Zeta, in Traffic.