Pacino to play Bonaparte

Emma Watson was set to star in another movie based on the same novel last year, but that project has fallen through. MTV tells us just when Napoleon thinks he’s out, they drag him back in.

It seems that Al Pacino has long had a Napoleon complex. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he’s cherished the idea of playing the famous French emperor for years, and is now getting his chance by signing on to play Bonaparte in “Betsy and the Emperor.”

Directed by John Curran (”The Painted Veil”) from a screenplay by Brian Edgar, the independent film will be based on the children’s book by Staton Rabin. It’s based on the true story of Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe, whose father was Napoleon’s jailer during his exile on St. Helena. The two struck up a friendship and rumors flew that the exiled Emperor was romancing the teenager, though they have never been proven.

The School Library Journal provides this weirdly worded synopsis.

Grade 5-9 — Betsy Balcombe has just returned to her remote island home of St. Helena from boarding school in London. At 14, she is a headstrong, adventure-seeking young lady. She gamely faces the challenge of playing host to Napoleon Bonaparte, who is exiled on the forbidding island after his capture at Waterloo. The only member of her family who is not timid around the former emperor of France, Betsy strikes up an unlikely friendship with “Boney” that surprises both of them.