Steven Spielberg and Javier Bardem May Bring Montezuma-Cortez Clash to the Big Screen

If you're Steven Spielberg, how do you follow up an Oscar-nomianted film about one iconic historical figure? According to Deadline, you team up with Javier Bardem and make a film about two iconic historical figures. On Monday, the site reported that Spielberg was eyeing Montezuma, a film that would focus on "the kinship and ultimately the bloody collision between Montezuma and Cortez as the latter led the Spanish infiltration into Mexico." Bardem would play Hernando Cortez.

There's actually some history to the Montezuma script, as it was written nearly 50 years ago by Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter who was blacklisted during the communist scare. Trumbo wrote the film as a vehicle for Kirk Douglas, but the project never got off the ground. Stephen Zaillian, Spielberg's Schindler's List producer, has already signed on for Montezuma and will also give the script a rewrite.

Deadline reports that the film could be retitled Cortez to reflect Bardem's involvement too.