She hasn’t been on screen since she was annoying Seth Rogen in The Guilt Trip, and hasn’t picked up her director’s megaphone since 1996’s The Prince Of Tides. But Barbra Streisand is looking to get back behind the camera, preparing to make Catherine The Great.
Streisand will direct the film based on Kristina Lauren Anderson’s script, which took the top spot on the 2014 Blacklist for unproduced screenplays. While that hasn’t always been the indicator of great eventual films, this does seem like a topic that Streisand can make something of.
The biopic will find the young Catherine dealing with the rigours of royalty after 1762, when she took power following her husband’s assassination. Trapped in an abusive marriage, she nevertheless went on to make strides in modernizing the Russian empire. Streisand has earned several Oscar nominations and won a Golden Globe for her work as a director, so the producers of this one, including Gil Netter are no doubt hoping for good things.