The film Hannibal with Denzel Washington would have been completely canceled!

The big historical film finally buried by Netflix?

Denzel Washington as Hannibal in front of Antoine Fuqua’s camera, that doesn’t happen.

After months of development and concerns over the budget, the project dedicated to the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca was reportedly abandoned.

Nothing official yet, but it was Robert Richardson, the famous director of photography, who worked on the film, who revealed it in an interview granted this week to Deadline :

“I was going to do Hannibal with Antoine and Denzel Washington for Netflix – about Hannibal Barca, the general of Carthage – but the project fell through two weeks ago! It’s hard because I’ve been working on it for 10 or 12 weeks already…“

We therefore understand that the project was very advanced, on the verge of starting filming, but it was ultimately stopped in its tracks, certainly due to costs which had exploded.

Announced earlier this year, Hannibal was to mark the sixth collaboration between Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington, after Training Daythe trilogy Equalizer And The Seven Mercenaries. But according to previously reported information, Netflix had already put the project on hold due to its budget being considered too high. The studio finally decided to abandon it permanently.

The film was to tell the story of Hannibal Barca, one of the greatest military strategists of Antiquity, famous in particular for having led his armies against Rome during the Second Punic War and crossing the Alps with his war elephants.

However, the film brought together a first-rate team. The screenplay was by John Logan, known for having participated in the scripts of Gladiator, The Last Samurai And Skyfall.