Check out the first shots of Joaquin Phoenix as the lead in ‘Napoleon’

Ridley Scott has begun shooting his grand Napoleon biopic, starring Joaquin Phoenix, in East London. Greenwich residents will know this all too well, as the Old Royal Naval College is full of horse-drawn carts, arrays of pristine cannons, giant blue screens, and warnings to not be alarmed about the frequent sound of artillery fire.

Joaquin Phoenix is playing Bonaparte in the film and the first images of him in costume have finally emerged. Check it out:

Scott’s movie, previously known as ‘Kitbag’, will show Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power through political and military means, with a focus on his relationship with his wife Josephine (played by The Crown‘s Vanessa Kirby). Judging by the set of the film, it’s evident that it’s going to be a grand production and will perhaps be a potential awards contender after it lands on Apple TV Plus in 2023.

Film fans already know that an ambitious ‘Napoleon’ movie has been a very long time coming. The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey director Stanley Kubrick harbored ambitions to bring this story to the big screen with Jack Nicholson in the title role for years.

But despite an astonishing amount of research from Kubrick the movie was eventually canceled, though his screenplay is being used as the basis for an upcoming collaboration between No Time to Die‘s Cara Joji Fukunaga and Steven Spielberg, who’ll adapt it into a miniseries.

While nothing can be said about the miniseries’ future with certainty, you can look forward to Scott’s Napoleon, which is all set to arrive sometime in mid-2023.