Cary Fukunaga in Talks to Direct Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Napoleon’ as HBO Miniseries

Rumors have been swiriling for weeks, but at last, it appears official that True Detective helmer Cary Fukunaga may be making his HBO return. Talks for Fukunaga to helm a miniseries adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s lost Napoleon movie have begun, with an eye toward a miniseries.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Fukunaga has entered negotiations to direct a script from writer David Leland, based on Kubrick’s “greatest never made film” of Napoleon Bonaparte’s 19th century attempt to conquer all of Europe. Kubrick researched the film extensively through the 1960s, scrapping the project after the release of director Sergei Bondarchuk’s films War and Peace and Waterloo.

According to the report, Kubrick’s family allowed HBO access to the late director’s archives, which include a script and “more than 17,000 images of Napoleonic-era paintings and artifacts.” Both Baz Luhrmann and Steven Spielberg have previously expressed interest in adapting the material, with Spielberg now eyed to produce the mini-series with Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey.

Fukunaga has plenty on his plate for the moment, between Netflix’s Maniac, a World War II drama, and TNT’s The Alienist, but could a Napoleon series live up to its decades-long promise?