Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot still has Cleopatra in her sights, even though the producers seem to be taking their time in bringing the picture to the screen. After all, it’s been a solid sixty years since the last epic production of Cleopatra—the iconic 1963 film that starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

But Gadot insists that she’s still attached to the project, now to be directed by Kari Skogland, who has bumped Patty Jenkins out of the director’s chair. The screenplay for the long-awaited film is being written by Laeta Kalogridis, who is best known for known for scripting Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel. Producers include Jenkins and Gadot along with Charles Roven and Jaron Varsano.

But Gadot insists that the new Cleopatra biopic will veer away from the Taylor/Burton one, which focused on the Egyptian queen as a seductress who was primarily interested in exploiting the amorous rivalry between Caesar and Marc Antony. Instead, she hopes to portray Cleopatra as an an independent and powerful woman in her own right.

Interviewed by Flaunt magazine, Gadot explained why the film has been in development for such a long period of time: “It’s a big task. I don’t want to [rush] making it – it’s something that needs…so much thought and care because it’s Cleopatra. We have incredible writers working on the script – before and after the writer’s strike – like Laeta Kalogridis. It’s a beautiful script. We’re not rushing ourselves because you have to be responsible when you deal with such an incredible, iconic, legendary woman.

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In her interview, Gadot emphasized the fact that “our generation and youngsters know very little” about this “brilliant” figure who lived two thousand years ago.

The versatile Israeli-born Gadot is scheduled to appear in a number of films before her debut as Cleopatra.

She will portray the lead in Netflix’s Heart of Stone, a spy thriller that will see Gadot cast as M16 agent Rachel Stone, a role described as a “female James Bond.” She will also star as the Evil Queen in a live-action Disney adaptation of Snow White.

Gadot is not abandoning her Wonder Woman identity, having recently declared, “I love portraying Wonder Woman. It’s so close to and dear to my heart. From what I heard from James and from Peter is that we’re gonna develop a Wonder Woman 3 together [at DC Studios].”

And, of course, the SAG-AFRTA strike is expected to delay shooting of the new Cleopatra biopic even further. To say nothing of the fact that the movie will now appear under the Universal label—it had originally been a Paramount production. As producer Roven told The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s another one where we’re sitting in a stalled situation. We can’t really move the script forward because of the writers’ strike. Kari went off and did the Wind River sequel, but she’s still attached to it.”

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