The name of the film is still not certain, but Alejandro Amenabar’s English-language movie, which will be shot in Malta, seems to have already run into difficulties.
The Hollywood Reporter said last week that, according to its Maltese sources, the film set workers went on strike last week over late payments and the project lost a location.
No notice of the strike seems to have emerged two weeks ago, when a carefully guided press tour with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Minister Austin Gatt was organised.
However, according to two short notices by ADT, filming will take place in the Valletta Ditch on Wednesday, 19 March and at Bingemma on 20 March.
Seemingly unaware that she was revealing the name of a film as yet unannounced to the rest of the world, Daniela Borg Mizzi, Public Relations manager at ADT, apologised to those who will be inconvenienced by the filming.
According to most film magazines and websites, the film is a historical drama set in early Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom, while also falling in love with his master, a female philosophy professor and atheist.
Rachel Weisz, a veteran of the first two Mummy movies, who is thus returning to ancient Egypt, will play Hypatia, the Alexandrian professor.
Ashraf Barhom – one of the stars of the Oscar-nominated Palestinian film Paradise Now – is playing a zealous Christian monk named Ammonius.
Oscar Isaac, who played Joseph in New Line’s The Nativity Story and appears in Steven Soderbergh’s Guerilla, is set as the slave Orestes, who has an unrequited love for Hypatia.
Telecinco Cinema is putting up a large chunk of the e50 million budget.
Fort Ricasoli in Kalkara is slowly being transformed into an ancient Egypt set, with columns decorated with hieroglyphics and carvings. Parts of the 17th century fort are also being incorporated in the film, with a primitive church being constructed in a section of it, and close to 400 Maltese are already employed in preparation for the movie.
Apart from Fort Ricasoli, filming will also take place on location in Mdina, Valletta and Marsaxlokk.