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Denzel Washington to play Carthaginian warrior 'Hannibal' who attacked Rome atop Elephant. Antoine Fuqua directing for Netflix
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Roll Fizzlebeef
Member
This whole series is amazing.
And even if it isn't Hannibal drawn from life, just looking at the coins from Carthage, depicting their gods or whoever, shows a distinct appearance
there are lots of them showing what carthaginians and romans presumably looked like, they seem remarkably similar in appearance.
CoinArchives.com Search Results : hannibal not hannibalianus
www.coinarchives.com
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
I’m totally in. Denzel is the best
violence
Member
I put it on when I'm at work. My coworkers tolerate it.
HoodWinked
Member
Netflix living up to the meme
ThisIsMyDog
Member
He should also marry time-travel black Cleopatra in this movie and free a society of non-binary lesbians from a Roman rule.
mitch1971
Member
Which parts of the Elephants will be CGI and which parts real?
Denzel shooting a dozen arrows while sliding down the elephant’s back and wearing a long flowing blonde wig will be real
mitch1971
Member
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Michelle Yeoh would have been better casting as Hannibal of Carthage imo. Stronger physical presence and more age appropriate.
Heh heh, I've no doubt they will give him at least one boss moment.
I'm curious how they will frame the conflict. White romans versus black carthagenians is the least interesting take, I hope they avoid such a reductive script. I've no doubt they will shoehorn in a buncha women and struggle to give them something to do but Fuqua strikes me as a guy willing to fight to have a masculine film, certainly on The Terminal List, while the Katie character was miscast/misacted(?) versus how she was in the books, he didn't suddenly invent lady SEALS or whatever just to appease the algorithm. So I have confidence that he will try to stick to history as much as possible, with the understanding that it's Denzel's name getting this project made at all.
Hope they get Vin Diesel for Scipio Africanus though, the likeness is uncanny
but seriously, Vin has put in SO MUCH WORK into his version of this tale, he deserves a semi-prominent role.
Hardensoul
Member
She’s 61 yrs old sure 7yrs younger than Denzel. But still not young enough!Michelle Yeoh would have been better casting as Hannibal of Carthage imo. Stronger physical presence and more age appropriate.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
She’s 61 yrs old sure 7yrs younger than Denzel. But still not young enough!
She was born to play Hannibal of Carthage on Netflix. Like Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles and Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison.
Hani-Belle, amirite???
kruis
Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
Why not? We don't have Hannibal's DNA or contemporary first hand reports from reliable witnesses about Hannibal's skin color, the shape of his eyes, his preferred pronouns, his sexual preferences or gender identification. There's a high likelihood that he was a Levantian heterosexual male, but since we can't say that with 100% certainty there's always the chance he was actually a bluehaired nonbinary person of Asian descent trained in the art of Kung Fu who had to hide her identity disguised as a Levantian heterosexual male and who fought not only the Romans but also the patriarchy.
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DaciaJC
Gold Member
I'm getting pretty fucking tired of it at this point.
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Is this being produced by Shonda Rhimes?
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Unknown Soldier
Member
I want to see them try and turn Saladin black. Of course they are too cowardly to do that because the Muslim world will not only get mad, they have a reputation for doing drastic things when they are mad.Carthage is in modern day Tunisia, a country that is 98% Ethnic Arab. Yes, it has some black people there, but it's a very small minority.
And the whole Carthaginian empire was in North Africa and a part of Europe. Not sub-Saharan Africa.
Havin Denzel Washington makes no sense for historical accuracy. It's obviously only for modern day identity politics. Again.
It really staggers me how these people are so stupid, constantly trying to turn other races into black, when there are several real historical characters or empires that never got any attention.
For example, the Empire of Mali and Mansa Musa. The richest man that ever lived, with real wealth, of gold, precious stones, land, etc. Not bitcoin and speculative assets.
Or the Empire of Aksum, one of the big 4 empires of it's age, along side with the Roman Empire, China and Persia.
Or the Empire of Nubia. They even had queens, like Amanitore.
There is so much untapped potential in African history, that is being ignored, because of sheer stupidity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin <--- for people who actually don't know who Saladin was
They should have just gotten Orlando Bloom to play Hannibal and no one would have complained about race swapping
Orlando Bloom already played Balian of Ibelin so he's got experience with these pseudo-historical epics
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
I was meh on Danzel playing Macbeth, but whatever its a shakespeare play and black actors have played those roles before so there is precedent there.
but this is ridiculous. this is a historical epic. danzel doing this is really disappointing. he is one of the sane ones in hollywood. doesnt talk politics. raised good kids. is a stand up guy. he should understand the optics of this.
I know we dont have many egyptian or middle eastern actors, but if hollywood is trying to correct its past fuckups like Exodus when an australian and a scottish dude played the Pharoh and Moses, then hire someone of middle eastern descent. I thought casting of Rami Malick for Freddie Mercury was an awesome choice despite their body types being completely different. Sucks that Rami is the only major actor from the middle east/north africa, and I completely understand that they need a well known actor to lead a high profile movie like this, but go fucking pick a latin american actor. Del Toro is white but he can pass off as a north african.
I guess their thinking is that if they have to hire a white actor to play it, why not a black actor? but two wrongs dont make a right.
but this is ridiculous. this is a historical epic. danzel doing this is really disappointing. he is one of the sane ones in hollywood. doesnt talk politics. raised good kids. is a stand up guy. he should understand the optics of this.
I know we dont have many egyptian or middle eastern actors, but if hollywood is trying to correct its past fuckups like Exodus when an australian and a scottish dude played the Pharoh and Moses, then hire someone of middle eastern descent. I thought casting of Rami Malick for Freddie Mercury was an awesome choice despite their body types being completely different. Sucks that Rami is the only major actor from the middle east/north africa, and I completely understand that they need a well known actor to lead a high profile movie like this, but go fucking pick a latin american actor. Del Toro is white but he can pass off as a north african.
I guess their thinking is that if they have to hire a white actor to play it, why not a black actor? but two wrongs dont make a right.
Alcibiades
Member
The race-swapping and mismatching age thing has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
If this is a historical epic, I do think it works better if the actor is someone that reflects the most likely ethnic background (and age) of the real historical figure. Like, with the movie Napolean coming up soon I think it would have been pretty ridiculous to cast Denzel Washington in that role.
But like Shakespeare plays or Hamilton-style theater - in those cases it's about the performances and exaggerated expressions so the race swapping works and could even elevate the material.
Then again, sometimes an actor will own a role and be so perfect that all this discussion will seem silly in retrospect. Hoping that's the case here.
If this is a historical epic, I do think it works better if the actor is someone that reflects the most likely ethnic background (and age) of the real historical figure. Like, with the movie Napolean coming up soon I think it would have been pretty ridiculous to cast Denzel Washington in that role.
But like Shakespeare plays or Hamilton-style theater - in those cases it's about the performances and exaggerated expressions so the race swapping works and could even elevate the material.
Then again, sometimes an actor will own a role and be so perfect that all this discussion will seem silly in retrospect. Hoping that's the case here.
March Climber
Member
Because the Denzel of 20+ years ago who wanted this role wasn’t thinking in terms of 2023 social media standards when he wanted this role. He simply wanted the role back then. He’s always wanted it. It’s not his fault that things have changed and the online world of today is looking at everything in Hollywood with a microscopic lens.
mansoor1980
Gold Member
at the start of the punic wars , denzel to the romans....................
after facing defeat at the hands of scipio africanus......................
after facing defeat at the hands of scipio africanus......................
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winjer
Gold Member
TaylorSwiftFan
Member
Add another one to the list.
nkarafo
Member
And when was the last time any "proof" stopped them race swapping anyway?
Didn't make a difference for Anne Boleyn, Cleopatra and others. Proof doesn't matter, it's 2023, movie Haniball would be black no matter what the real person was.
Toons
Member
There were no "good guys" in those days if you're going by modern day morality scales.
If you could stomach troy and gladiator, and this movie, then you could stomach that.
The Roman's and greeks raped children. The carthaginians likely did too. Child marriage was a common thing until a couple centuries ago.
Everyone sucked. Time to accept that at the door at this point.
Regginator
Member
Per historian Patrick Hunt:
"Regarding his DNA, as far as we know, we have no skeleton, fragmentary bones, or physical traces of him, so establishing his ethnicity would be mostly speculative. From what we think we know about his family ancestry, however, his Barcid family (if that’s even the right name) has been generally understood as descending from Phoenician aristocracy. ...[so] his original ancestry would be located in what is modern Lebanon today. As far as we know, little to no Africanization—if that is an acceptable term—happened there in that region before or during his era. On the other hand, since the Phoenicians arrived and then later settled in what is now Tunisia... almost 1,000 years before Hannibal, it is very possible his family had intermixed in DNA with peoples then living in North Africa....we shouldn’t deny any possible Africanization of the region of Carthage."
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Museum_of_Antiquities_Hannibal-5c439256c9e77c0001570a97.jpg)
Was Hannibal, Enemy of Ancient Rome, Black?
The answer depends on what you mean by 'black'—whether you equate it with African, a nuance thereof, or something else. Learn more.www.thoughtco.com
Even if "Africanization" with the locals did take place, that still wouldn't have made him black. The indigenous Berbers/Amazigh peoples are not black (in the sense of sub-Saharan African).
winjer
Gold Member
That is not an accurate statement.
We do know that the average age of marriage, in medieval Europe, was 19 years for women and 20 for men. People weren't commonly raping children.
That idea comes from the nobility, where marriages were regarded like political treaties. And that meant that at any given point, if a marriage had to happen to unify 2 houses, it would happen, even if one party was a child. But that was the exception.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
What? Rome had specific laws to protect freeborn children against sexual predators.
I can't speak for Carthage. They did sacrifice children, but there isn't any evidence that they raped children.
clarky
Gold Member
You lost me after Denzel.
Antoine made one of the GOAT's with Training Day. The rest on his output is sub par at best, bar the First Equalizer that was just ok.
Hard to get excited about this one, Netflix being the main red flag.
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Agreed Training Day is incredible. But replacement Killers is amazing. Watch it again if you haven't seen it recently. I may be biased as CYF is my favorite actor. Brooklyn's Finest isn't bad either.
clarky
Gold Member
I must admit I have not seen The Replacement killers, at least I don't think I have. I'll stick it on the watch list.
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