‘Oh My God, Can You Rent the Colosseum?’
December 17th, 2006 by 
Steven Gould
When I was five or six, my father was stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany. (Kaiserslautern received its name from the favorite hunting retreat of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa who ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1155 until 1190. Like caesar slaughter, I guess.) My maternal grandmother came over to visit for a month and we took to the road, seeing the sights of Europe, including Rome.
Back then, the Colosseum was in the middle of an enormous traffic circle (which long ago was shut down as the traffic vibrations were hurting the building.) We drove around and around that once, caught in the crazy traffic. I got car sick.
I threw up.
Now, forty-five years later, I’m once again having an indirect effect on that same area. Jumper the movie based on my books Jumper and Reflex did some shooting there last month.
Photo by Philippe Antonello/20th Century Fox
(I probably threw up on this exact spot.)
From the New York Times.
UNDER a dawn sky and the watchful eyes of two stray calico cats, Doug Liman turned out last month for an experience that only a handful of filmmakers had ever known. He was to shoot for three days in the Colosseum.
No props. No lights. Not even a video cart was permitted to touch the ground. But Mr. Liman, his actors and a small crew from the science fiction thriller “Jumper” — granted unprecedented access even to the amphitheater’s labyrinthine guts, where gladiators and doomed beasts once waited — were to shoot their pivotal love scene on a stage that still belongs more to the dead than the living.
Access the rest of the story here (may require free registration.)
Update: Wow, I just learned something cool from John Maddox Roberts. The ‘Editor’ (sometimes a senator or other official–sometimes the emperor himself) was in charge of the bloodletting at the gladiator games.I guess in manuscript terms (whether a story lives or dies or gets cut up a lot) this makes perfect sense.And this comes full circle from the Kaiserslautern thingy. Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutamus!
Posted in History, JumperMovie, Movies, People, Personal History, Pop. Culture, Science Fiction, Steve | 
15 Comments »
December 17th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
That is so cool! And to think I knew ya when.
December 17th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Some pictures from
shootingfilming at the Rome airport. Kind of annoying as they have this stupid overrprint.December 17th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Karmic wheel, eh, brah? Ain’t that something?!
December 17th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Is it cool or strange to see someone elses take on your book? I guess in the best of worlds, it would be a little of both.
December 17th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Pretty much I think it’s healthier to think of them as my book and their movie.
December 17th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Except for that part where they give you lots of money….
December 17th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
I try not to get attached to that, either. Hello, IRS.
December 18th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
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December 18th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Walter Jon Williams tells me that there was a Bruce Lee film with scenes in the Coloseum but that they snuck in, did it without permission.
John Maddox Roberts points out that the climatic battle between Ymir the Venusian monster and an elephant takes place in the Colosseum in 20 Million Miles to Earth. Since this is Ray Harryhausen stop action animation, they were probably working in a model, mostly.
December 19th, 2006 at 10:42 am
“Ronin”, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno, had a scene that was at the Colosseum.
I love that movie.
December 19th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Ronin is a good movie. For me it’s the degree of realism. Nobody jumps out of a second story window firing an uzi and lands running.
On the other hand, it was filmed entirely in France so the colesseum they used was Roman but not Rome.
December 19th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
So, apparently Sam Jackson was on The Tonight Show last night. He was there mostly to promote Afro-Samurai, but he said a few words about Jumper. I just don’t know what words.
December 27th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
I was in Rome and someone threw up on me. Yuck!!! — I got a new book for Christmas. “Why Do Men Have Nipples?” by mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D. — It says that eating brains can be hazerdous to your health! “A rare disease called Kuru can occur from eating human brains, which killed about 10 percent or the Fore, a New Guinea tribe of cannibals. …” There’s more at the store.
December 27th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
All our commentors are certified free of Kuru, but we’re not sure about Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. In fact, some of Rory’s posts may be diagnostic for Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
(And I did not throw up on you–I recall clearly it mostly ended up on my jacket.)
December 28th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Wow, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is bad stuff! I’d rather be puked on! Missed you’all at Xmas. My best to all.