Grab your battered fedora and dig with us through history. Steven Spielberg, Javier Bardem and Steven Zaillian are reviving their planned take on Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes, switching venues from the big screen to a miniseries backed by Amazon.
Still based on a script by famously blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, the project, once called Montezuma and now known more simply as Cortes, focuses on the brutal historical confrontation between Cortes and Aztec leader Montezuma in 1519 after the former led an incursion into Mexico. Pushing through the area looting the riches and bringing smallpox and disease in his wake, Cortez was eventually captured and held as a prisoner/guest by Montezuma. He managed to turn the tables, though, making the Aztec leader his puppet as his forces began devastating attacks on the Aztec population, leading to Montezuma’s death at the hands of his own countrymen. Later, it appears that he fathered a son on Montezuma's daughter after she had been converted to Christianity, married to a series of Spanish noblemen and widowed several times.
"It is a privilege to tell this epic story – one that is full of drama and conflict within this huge, historical spectacle where two distant civilizations clash at the height of their reign," Bardem says in a statement. "The best and worst of human nature came to life in all its light and darkness. As an actor, there is no better challenge than to serve such a unique project that I have been passionate about for years, and I am thrilled to be working with this dream team of Steven Spielberg, Steven Zaillian and Amazon."
When it was a film in 2014, Spielberg was considering directing. It's not yet known if he'll be more than a producer on the series, but Bardem will star and Zaillian has been at work on a new version of the script, splitting the story across four episodes.
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