By Amazon is pulling out all the stops it can to find its Game of Thrones and drive people to its streaming service, and the next stop pulled out is adapting a 1960s screenplay by Dalton Trumbo into a four part mini-series call Cortes. That’s a pretty big stop to pull out in and of itself, but add to that that Stephen Spielberg is set to produce with Javier Bardem starring (he actually kind of looks like Cortes) and adapted by Steven Zaillian, and you’ve got yourself quite the list of names.
The show, based off a screenplay that was meant for Kirk Douglas and was originally called Montezuma, will follow the titular character’s exploration and conquest of the Mayan empire, which basically shaped the history of the world for centuries to come. Given the subject matter and the platform, I think we can expect a lot of blood, killing, and drama. Whether or not this is going to draw in viewers like some of HBO and Netflix’s shows do is still up in the air. Amazon has been struggling to find that iconic show that turns their streaming service into a cultural must have instead of an also-ran, and despite the big names I’m not sure a historical piece is going to do that.
