Alexander the gay? A great battle is unfolding in Hollywood between rival versions of the life of Greek conqueror Alexander the Great--and whether either will depict his gay loves. (Film).

We've seen Hollywood studios compete to produce two movies about volcanic eruptions, missions to Mars, asteroids hurtling toward Earth, even two computer-animated movies about ants--but this year the grandest race of all is being fought in Tinseltown to bring to the screen the life story of Macedonian king and warrior Alexander the Great. One is the long-planned vision of the inimitable Oliver Stone; the other is being spearheaded by veteran producer Dino De Laurentiis with Baz Luhrmann directing. Both will easily cost over $100 million to make, even with the assistance of computer-generated imagery. So how then, if at all, will they tackle the well-documented fact that Alexander, who died at the age of 32 in 323 B.C., was bisexual?

"Alexander's great love was Haphaestion, and he modeled himself on the great Greek warrior Achilles, whose great love was Patroclus," explains Eric Shanower, the out creator of the comic book series The Age of Bronze. "When Alexander made it to the site of Troy, he made sacrifices at the tomb of Achilles in his honor."

Certainly Oliver Stone is not shying away from the facts. Stone finished the latest draft of his Alexander script in August and now has Colin Farrell attached to star, with plans to shoot in Morocco and Spain before the year is out. He has been working on the project for seven years--with Tom Cruise and Heath Ledger among the Alexanders he has wooed and lost--but he remains committed to depicting Alexander's sexual relationships with men as well as his three marriages to women.

In 1998 Stone was snubbed by the Greek government after sending them the script. He was told that unless he removed the bisexuality from the film, the government would not cooperate. The Athens News Agency reported at the time that the reason for the noncooperation was that "Stone's vision of the life of Alexander the Great would differ markedly from the historical version."

The De Laurentiis-Luhrmann version, which is not as advanced in development as Stone's version but already has the backing of Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox, may be less likely to address Alexander's homosexual activities. This film will be based on a trilogy of books by Italian historian Valerio Massimo Manfredi, who carefully airbrushed out the gay content from the classical texts and focused on a dramatic straight love affair with Barsine, the wife of one of Alexander's conquered kings, Memnon of Rhodes. Ted Tally, who wrote the screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991, has written the screenplay, although De Laurentiis's office in Los Angeles confirmed that Luhrmann--currently preparing La Boheme for the New York stage--has yet to add his own input.

"Alexander was the world's first rock star," said Luhrmann in an interview with movie trade paper Variety. "He was a fantastic freak of nature." If Tally is hardly the gay community's favorite screenwriter, at least Luhrmann--whose gay-friendly credits include Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge--may take a closer look at Alexander's true sexuality.

To play the conqueror, Luhrmann is reportedly eyeing Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in the director's Romeo and Juliet adaptation. DiCaprio had previously been attached to a now-shelved biopic of the Greek hero being developed by director Martin Scorsese from a script by Peter Buchman and Christopher McQuarrie, which included reference to the young overlord's bisexuality as well as a disturbing male rape scene. Also abandoned are HBO's plans to film an epic 10-part Alexander miniseries with Mel Gibson's Icon Productions.

Since Alexander lived in a pre-Christian world, some scholars argue that contemporary terms such as gay or bisexual are not even relevant. Alexander was not gay, writes Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman of Pennsylvania State University, "not because he had no relationships with men and boys but because our terms homosexual and gay are inappropriate terms for antiquity.... The ancients viewed one's choice of bed partner as a choice--not a reflection of deep-seated psychological preferences. In this respect they were somewhat more blase about it all than we are today."

But will Hollywood studios shell out $100 million for a hero who swings both ways or a Gladiator-style movie with a "blase" view of sexuality? Highly unlikely, says one out producer who preferred anonymity. "Would a Hollywood studio want to highlight the gay components?" he said. "Look at the release schedule for this year and find your answer there. They don't want any gay components at all."

Goodridge is U.S. editor of Screen International.