Fri Oct 24, 11:06 AM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Catherine Zeta-Jones is ready to walk like an Egyptian. And sing like one, too.

The Hollywood star is in negotiations to topline Cleopatra, director Steven Soderbergh's 3-D live-action, rock-musical extravaganza about the legendary Egyptian queen and her ill-fated love affair with Roman politician Marc Antony.

The highly ambitious project would mark the first tuner the 39-year-old Zeta-Jones has done since she won an Oscar portraying Velma Kelly in 2002's Chicago. Like that film, Cleopatra is a period piece set in the rough-and-tumble 1920s, the era of gangsters and flappers, and also reunites her with her Traffic helmer.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Soderbergh is eyeing Hugh Jackman in the role of Antony. Of course, the thesp is no slouch in the song-and-dance department himself, having won a Tony Award in 2004 playing songwriter and performer Peter Allen in Broadway's The Boy From Oz.

Cleopatra will feature original music by indie rockers Guided by Voices, whose former bassist, James Greer, is an author and penned the screenplay. The $30 million film tells the tale of the Egyptian ruler as she hooks up with the Roman general and eventually commits suicide after she and Antony are defeated by Julius Caesar at the battle of Actium.

Zeta-Jones next hits the big screen in Bart Freundlich's comedy-romance Rebound, playing a single mom who has an affair with a much younger man.





Article: HERE