This looks interesting
* The Daniel P. Mannix book-adapted-into-TV series is set to premiere on July 18, 2024 on Peacock with all 10 episodes.
Those About to Die: this mega-budget Roman epic is as close to actual time travel as it’s possible to get
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jul/13/those-about-to-die-roman-epic-anthony-hopkins-prime-video
Blood, guts, gore and Anthony Hopkins … this swords-and-sandals extravaganza may only be historically accurate-ish, but it’s the best ancient Rome to ever grace our screens
This bizarre rambling article is hard to read, but the 10-part series looks interesting. ( and thank goodness it all drops simultaneously )
Anyway, here’s Those About to Die (18 July, Prime Video), which will have to do until then. It’s a mega-budget swords-and-sandals epic, inexplicably starring Anthony Hopkins, who plays an ageing Emperor Vespasian as he has to choose a successor from his two sons, the warrior Titus Flavanius (Tom Hughes) and the unbearable Domitian (Jojo Macari). There’s a delicate power shift among Rome’s political elite; there’s a lot of chariot racing; there are queens who keep walking around at night with hoods on; there are slaves who through honour and great strength will make it to the top; there’s a lot of pouring wine out of big jugs. Blood spatters the sand. Hopkins walks slowly through a room and delivers a line of dialogue that you sort of forget the words of even while it’s actively happening. There’s a sweeping CGI shot of the city from above. Roland Emmerich directs it. Saving Private Ryan’s Robert Rodat writes. Iwan Rheon, an evil little boy who I always love seeing in things, stares through the slit of a door, plotting.
...
Instead, it’s more akin to Shōgun in that it’s a historical drama with enough intrigue and good actors and blood and guts and gore that it feels as if it’s got something to it. I would rebadge this genre as “historically accurate-ish”; there are some real names and people in there, and some real buildings that got built and assassinations that got assassinated, but there are also a lot of side-quests and side-characters that can only exist to keep the cogs of a big-budget TV show moving. And, honestly, that’s OK. It’s been hard to capture Rome on television – HBO’s Rome, obviously – and there have been a few doomed attempts recently that fell short (I am looking at you, Domina!).