'Rome' movie in the works?

By Elisabeth Rappe,Cinematical
December 1,2008

Maybe all roads do lead to Rome. According to The Hollywood Reporter and creator Bruno Heller, there's actually talk of continuing the brilliant HBO series on the big screen to wrap up all the historical loose ends caused by the series' abrupt cancellation. (Something which HBO now thinks was a big mistake. Between that and passing over Preacher, they're rather low in my esteem right now.)

Heller admits the talk is, at the moment, just talk. "It's moving along. It's not there until it is there. I would love to round that show off." Heller wouldn't discuss movie plot plans, but the next step for Rome was Augustus Caesar having to deal with a certain carpenter from Judea -- with a twist typical of the series.

Fans of the show will probably weep a little at Heller's unrealized plans -- Lucius Vorenus' off-camera fate wasn't as definite as we might have thought, and we would have gotten a whole season of Egyptian debauchery. "I discovered halfway through writing the second season the show was going to end," Heller said. "The second was going to end with death of Brutus. Third and fourth season would be set in Egypt. Fifth was going to be the rise of the messiah in Palestine. But because we got the heads-up that the second season would be it, I telescoped the third and fourth season into the second one, which accounts for the blazing speed we go through history near the end. There's certainly more than enough history to go around."

A Rome movie is probably nothing but a dream -- anything more than a whisper, and it will vanish, it is so fragile. But cancellation is no longer a death knell, and while they can't give me back the lost season of Antony and Cleopatra, I'm always up for more bread and circuses.