Lee Tamahori’s Emperor was announced by Belgian producer Corsan on the back of their previous collaboration with Tamahori, The Devil’s Double. It now has a lead and a production date.
Adrian Brody will play the titular Emperor (Charles V), a character “trying to hold together a fragmented Empire, in a 16th century world of wealth, debauchery, violent retaliations, sex, manipulation and treason.”
The film will be Brody’s second with Corsan following Paul Haggis’ TriBeCa-premiered Third Person. Shooting will get under way in August, in Belgium and the Czech Republic.
The Devil’s Double
Tamahori was last year rumoured to be getting close to shooting The Patriarch, the adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies by John Collee (Walking with Dinosaurs 3D, Creation, Master and Commander). The title was offered production funding by the NZFC and NZ On Air in 2012.
The announcement of Emperor was made by Corsan in Cannes, from where reports quoted Brody as saying, “I have long admired Lee’s work and [been] a true fan since he blew me away with Once Were Warriors.
Tamahori is best-known internationally for Next, xXx: State of the Union and Die Another Day.
