Honestly, if you look at the 1963 Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor movie, it’s a miracle the thing even exists. Most people today know it as that "really long movie" or the one where Liz Taylor wore a lot of gold, but the reality is much weirder. It wasn't just a film; it was a four-year-long financial apocalypse that basically ended the old Hollywood studio system.
You’ve probably heard it was expensive. That’s an understatement. It cost $44 million back then. If you adjust that for inflation in 2026, we’re talking well over $450 million. It almost put 20th Century Fox out of business permanently. They actually had to sell off huge chunks of their backlot in Los Angeles to survive, which is how we got the neighborhood of Century City. Imagine a movie being so over-budget that the studio has to sell its own land just to pay the electric bill.
The Chaos Behind the Scenes
The production was a total mess from day one. They originally started filming in London in 1960. Why London? Because they thought they could save money. It was a disaster. It rained constantly. The "marble" sets made of papier-mâché literally melted in the drizzle.
Then Elizabeth Taylor got incredibly sick. She came down with a rare form of pneumonia and had to have an emergency tracheotomy to save her life. If you look closely at some scenes in the movie, you can actually see the small scar on her neck. While she was recovering, the studio realized they’d spent millions and only had about ten minutes of usable footage.
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They fired the first director, Rouben Mamoulian, and hired Joseph L. Mankiewicz. He had to rewrite the entire script while they moved production to Rome. This is where things got really "scandaleuse," as the French would say.
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When Richard Burton showed up in Rome to play Mark Antony, the world changed. Both he and Taylor were married to other people at the time. Their chemistry wasn't just for the cameras; it was a full-blown, public meltdown of a relationship that the Vatican actually condemned. They called it "erotic vagrancy."
Paparazzi swarmed the sets. The production budget kept ballooning because the stars were essentially living like royalty on the studio's dime. Elizabeth Taylor became the first actress to ever sign a $1 million contract for a single film, but with all the delays and her percentage of the gross, she ended up walking away with closer to $7 million. In 1963, that was an astronomical sum of money.
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Historical Accuracy vs. Hollywood Glamour
Is the Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor movie historically accurate? Kinda, but mostly no. The basic timeline of her relationships with Julius Caesar (played by Rex Harrison) and Mark Antony follows the history books, but the visuals are pure 1960s.
- The Makeup: That iconic blue eyeshadow and heavy eyeliner? That wasn't really how people looked in 30 BC. It was a "mod" 1960s take on Egyptian style that Revlon eventually turned into a massive makeup line.
- The Costumes: Taylor had 65 costume changes. One of her capes was made of 24-carat gold cloth. It looked spectacular on a 70mm screen, but a real Ptolemaic queen would have worn mostly Greek-style linen tunics, not Las Vegas-style gold lamé.
- The Entrance to Rome: The scene where she enters Rome on a giant Sphinx is one of the most famous moments in cinema. It involved thousands of extras and real gold. In reality, Cleopatra’s visit to Rome was much quieter and politically tense, not a parade with flying pigeons and gold-leafed dancers.
Why We Still Talk About It
Even though it was a "flop" because it took years to turn a profit, it was actually the highest-grossing film of 1963. People were obsessed with it. It won four Academy Awards, mostly for its insane production design and costumes.
It changed how movies are made. After this, studios became much more terrified of "runaway productions." It also proved that celebrity scandals could be used as a marketing tool. The "Liz and Dick" drama sold more tickets than the actual plot did.
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What You Should Do If You Want to Watch It
If you’re planning to sit down and watch the Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor movie, you need a plan. It’s nearly four hours long.
- Find the 50th Anniversary Restoration: Don't watch an old, grainy version. The colors in the 4K restoration are vibrant and show off every cent of that $44 million budget.
- Break it into two parts: The movie is naturally split. The first half is about Caesar; the second half is about Antony. Treat it like a mini-series.
- Watch the "making-of" documentaries: Honestly, the story of how they made the movie is often more entertaining than the movie itself. Look for "Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood."
The film serves as a reminder of a time when Hollywood had zero chill. It’s an era of excess that we probably won't ever see again, mostly because no studio head is brave (or crazy) enough to bet the entire company on a single actress and a bunch of gold-painted sets.
To dive deeper into the technical side of the 1960s epic era, you can research the Todd-AO 70mm filming process, which was the high-definition format of its day used to capture the massive scale of the Roman sets.