I might have mentioned this before, but on this date in 31 BC, during the Final War of the Roman Republic: Battle of Actium, off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeated troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
Writer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz hoped that the 1963 film “Cleopatra” would be released as two separate movies, “Caesar and Cleopatra,” followed by “Antony and Cleopatra”.
Each was to run approximately three hours.
Twentieth Century Fox decided against this and premiered the movie at 4 hours 3 minutes.
More cuts pared the movie to three hours fourteen minutes for general release.
In principle, Twentieth Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck did not object to Mankiewicz’s idea to make two three-hour movies.
However, he knew the public was obsessed with the Dame Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton affair, and would not show up for the first part, in which Burton did not appear.
The two parts were edited into one movie.
Mankiewicz was fired during post-production, due to the quarrels with Zanuck over the nature of editing the movie’s length.
Since he wrote the script as he was shooting, Twentieth Century Fox soon realized that only Mankiewicz knew how the story fit together.
He was then brought back to complete the project.
Mankiewicz referred to the film as “the toughest three pictures I ever made.” He was never proud of this movie, and only stayed for his friend, Elizabeth Taylor. At one point, he even tried to have his name taken off of it.
When this movie finally broke even in 1973, Fox “closed the books” on it, keeping all future profits secret to avoid paying those who might have been promised a percentage of the profits. (IMDb)