Saturday Trivia

Today concludes our seventh week of shooting out of a scheduled eighteen. I’m in a set we call “the ruins” which is the destroyed foundation of a farm settlement in a Himalayan mountain pass shooting three distinct love scenes: Brendan and Maria, Luke and Isabella, and John Hannah and a yak called Geraldine (not really a love scene, only kidding.) The wind and snow are pummeling the set and it looks cold, very cold but the illusion is ruined when the clapstick guy marks the shot in a T-shirt. It’s an effective illusion, but all Hollywood films are an illusion.

Agatha Christie has found a new lease of life as a video game heroine, with the “Queen of crime novelists” holding her own alongside sector stalwarts Lara Croft and Princess Zelda.

Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile, released as an internet download, has become one of the top ten games played on personal computers, the most popular platform for video games, figures released today show.

The title, based on the 1937 book in which Hercule Poirot unravels a murder onboard an Egyptian river cruise, has been downloaded 10 million times since April.

UK film, TV and theatre company Stagescreen Productions begins shooting The Young Cleopatra, the first in a series of historical features, in Egypt on November 4.

The shoot will take place at the Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC), a partner in the project, and on locations in Alexandria and around the Nile.

The $3m film, billed as the story of how " young Cleopatra, Princess of Egypt, fights for her life, discovers love, and emerges as a goddess", is directed by Richard Platt. DoP Ken Brinsly will work with a largely Egyptian crew.

The EMPC has sales rights for the Arab world, and a 25% share in world rights outside the UK and Australia.

"We could shoot anything in Egypt," said Stagescreen founder and producer Jeffrey Taylor, who is now casting in London for the lead roles. "If you're looking for exotic locations, it's the place, and it's inexpensive."

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