"Rome", the series tells the story of Julius Caesar through the eyes of two of his soldiers, portraying both the upper and lower classes of ancient Rome in gritty, graphic detail.
Ultimately, the show will cost $100 million for its first year, some $30 million more than initially planned, making it the most expensive series in HBO's history. ("Band of Brothers,'' which cost $120 million, remains the priciest programming.)
"Rome" will be amortized over a five-year
run, from 27.5 million subscribers and revenue streams from DVD and deals
like the one with RAI will bring in continuous profits.
ROME - In an ancient courtyard cobbled with hand-laid stones, a troop of toga-clad legionnaires are marching in step to the shouted orders, in Latin, of their commander. Past the Temple of Vesta, past the Senate, past the Arch of Janus and the 10-foot public calendar that ring the Forum.
The monuments are wood and fiberglass, but as with everything HBO seems to undertake, the detail and quality in recreating 50 B.C. for its new series, "Rome," scheduled to be broadcast next fall, are dazzling. The set occupies nearly all of the film studio Cinecittà, just outside Rome, and on a recent tour, even Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the modern-day emperor and media magnate, pronounced the production superior to his own efforts to reproduce antiquity on a set in Tunisia.
Still, even for a cable network that has made its reputation on taking risks, "Rome'' represents a huge gamble. With its "Sex and the City'' over and "The Sopranos'' off the air until 2006, and having just dominated the Emmy Awards once again, HBO is facing increased pressure to meet audience expectations for buzz-making shows. And now the responsibility for creating what HBO executives like to call a water-cooler show - a program that makes waves and creates talk - lies disproportionately on the shoulders of "Rome,'' which looks nothing like HBO's contemporary, urban hits.
"We've got a lot at stake here,'' acknowledged Chris Albrecht, HBO's chairman and chief executive, in an interview after a recent visit to the set, timed to the announcement that Italy's RAI television would also broadcast "Rome.'' "We've got a great opportunity to get it right, but we only get one shot.'' The pressure has been showing.
The series tells the story of Julius Caesar through the eyes of two of his soldiers, portraying both the upper and lower classes of ancient Rome in gritty, graphic detail. But two months after production began last spring, the network suddenly pulled the plug at the end of June, sending the director, Michael Apted, and an executive producer, Stan Wlodkowski, back to Los Angeles for a seven-week unplanned hiatus.
When shooting resumed in the middle of August, the show had a new producer, a new director and an altered sensibility. The HBO executive who was shepherding the project, Anne Thomopoulos, was sidelined as the entertainment division president, Carolyn Strauss, took more direct control.
Mr. Albrecht explained that when the network chiefs finally looked at the early rushes, it was not what they had hoped. "We had to go back and redo the foundation,'' he said. "Weeks later, when we saw the stuff cut together, we realized we needed more extras; there was not enough set dressing.''
That was harder to accomplish from so far away, he added: "We said, 'We love most of what we're seeing, but O.K., O.K., hold on, we need to put more money in here, revamp this thing.' The train was going, going, going, we're 6,000 miles away, we'd had no opportunity to make that analysis and retool.''
The retooling resulted in the hiring of a new producer, Frank Doelger, though not before yet another producer, Tony To, an HBO veteran of the mini-series "Band of Brothers,'' came and went. In addition, a main role, played by an adolescent boy, had to be recast. While shooting ultimately recommenced from Episode 4, more work is needed on the first three episodes, and vast battle scenes planned for shooting in Bulgaria - initially postponed because of bad weather - have not yet been rescheduled.
The chaotic start represented an uncharacteristic stumble on the part of a network that prides itself on doing things first class. And there is little question that the chapter led to bruised feelings in the close-knit entertainment world, where HBO relies on a stable of proven talent.
One person who had been close to the project said Michael Apted never received a note that executives were unhappy, and that production was shut down suddenly. The person also said the bad weather in Bulgaria was a "convenient coincidence'' masking a lack of organization among New York, Los Angeles and Rome.
For HBO's part, Mr. Albrecht said, "the weather gave us a perfect excuse to stop'' and retool the show. "The biggest mistake we made,'' he added, "was not shooting the first episode and waiting and then adjusting the production plan as needed.'' Mr. Apted, a distinguished director ("Coal Miner's Daughter'') who is president of the Directors Guild of America, declined to comment.
The hiatus added millions of dollars to the budget as cast and crew waited, on salary, for HBO to figure out how to fix what it had found wrong. Ultimately, the show will cost $100 million for its first year, some $30 million more than initially planned, making it the most expensive series in HBO's history. ("Band of Brothers,'' which cost $120 million, remains the priciest programming.)
HBO executives maintain that even at that price, the series makes sense. If "Rome'' is successful, they argue, the cost of the elaborate set will be amortized over what HBO hopes will be as much as a five-year run, and revenue streams from DVD and deals like the one with RAI will bring in continuous profits.
Unlike broadcast networks or movie studios, HBO does not tie its budgets to audience ratings or box office sales but to a far more amorphous gauge of success: critical acclaim, media attention and, eventually, increased numbers of subscribers to the pay channel, which currently has 27.5 million.
For HBO, it's all about branding, and that requires a steady flow of remarkable programming. But since the phenomenal success of "The Sopranos,'' the network has not found a comparable series. "Carnivàle'' was a disappointment, "K Street'' was a pricey bust, and while the western "Deadwood'' garners strong ratings, it has not been embraced as a cultural touchstone.
Among its hits, "Six Feet Under,'' the drama about a funeral home, and "Entourage,'' about Hollywood comers, are urban, modern-era shows.
Which makes "Rome'' even more of a departure. As a programming bet, "Rome'' had a different genesis from many of HBO's major projects, which commonly come from popular novels like "Sex and the City'' or from pedigreed creators like Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks on "Band of Brothers.''
In 1997, Ms. Thomopoulos watched "I, Claudius,'' the British television series about the Roman emperor, and was intrigued. Then, in 1998, the screenwriters John Milius and William J. MacDonald pitched HBO the idea of a mini-series about ancient Rome, based on the lives of two soldiers who were mentioned in Caesar's writings.
HBO asked the screenwriter Bruno Heller to take a crack at a series, rather than a mini-series, but then put it on the shelf for two years while it pursued other period projects about Alexander the Great and King Arthur. Those eventually fell through when feature films on both subjects were made at major studios.
Even so, it was a tough call. "We thought, 'Do we really want to do a series in ancient Rome?' '' Mr. Albrecht, the HBO chairman, recalled. "You can't just call it a mob drama. There was no cultural framework; it's more out of the mainstream. But we kept going back to the script.''
Mr. Heller's take on the subject was what he calls a Ken Loach point of view, referring to the British auteur whose movies take a gutter-eye look at British society. Mr. Heller's idea was to demystify the grandeur of Rome and portray it for the raw and brutal culture it often was, rather than its frequent depiction as a refined, British-accented civilization. (The Rome set features a public toilet - holes along a plank - used by both men and women.)
Eventually, HBO gave the project a green light at a budget of around $70 million. The decision to shoot in Rome, which was less expensive than shooting in Los Angeles, was made because of the access to Italian craftsmen and Mediterranean light.
Mr. Heller explained that the early production problems were a result of not having had a pilotlike process in the beginning because of the need to build the set to shoot the initial episode. "The first part was like a pilot, though no one called it a pilot,'' he said. "We're learning as we go.'' For example, he said, the British actors - James Purefoy as Marc Antony and Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson as the two lead soldiers - first spoke in strong regional accents, which were difficult for Americans to understand.
Other executives said the early rushes looked too polished. Workers added another coat of paint mixed with sand to the monuments to make the stone look more real. Grass and weeds were planted between the cobblestones.
With Episode 4 complete, HBO says it is now confident that the series has found the right tone and is on track. "There's no denying that 'Sex and the City' and 'The Sopranos' were huge hits,'' Mr. Albrecht said. "But if you set out to make those, you'll fail. We have to continue to do things, be things that other networks aren't.''
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