Getty The Red Notice Cleopatra eggs are not real.
Many fans are enjoying the new Netflix movie, Red Notice, starring Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds. A key plot element involves the hunt for three rare eggs supposedly commissioned by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra (there will be some spoilers in this article.)
That has a lot of people wondering: Are the eggs real? Did Cleopatra really have three priceless, bejeweled eggs gifted to her on her wedding day by Mark Antony? The answer is no. Sorry to disappoint, but the Cleopatra egg plot line in Red Notice is completely made up.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Cleopatra Eggs Even Fooled the Cast & Crew
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According to TheWrap, Hiram Garcia, a producer on Red Notice and President of Production at The Rock’s Seven Bucks Productions, said the movie’s writer and director, Rawson Marshall Thurber, made up the Cleopatra eggs.
In the movie, Gadot and Reynolds play art thieves who are both after the third, and missing, Cleopatra egg. Johnson, who says he’s an FBI agent, joins the hunt to ostensibly clear his name.
Even people who worked on the movie thought the tale was real, but, according to TheWrap, it’s fake.
“One of the funniest things about the pitch as we took it around town is he had come up with the whole setup that you hear at the top of the movie, and during the pitch he has an amazing setup where he does this fascinating little trip through history,” Garcia told TheWrap. “He’s telling you about the time and Cleopatra to really set up the Macguffin of the movie.
“At the end of the pitch the same thing always came up which was, ‘I had no idea about the whole Cleopatra thing,’ and with great comedic timing he always said, ‘Oh I just made all that up.’ It has such a well-conceived backstory that you wish they were real, but no they were totally made up. It’s a very fun idea he had come up with.”
The Eggs Might Be Loosely Based on Faberge Eggs
GettyThe Third Faberge Imperial Easter Egg is displayed at Court Jewellers Wartski on April 16, 2014 in London, England. This rare Imperial Faberge Easter Egg, made for the Russian Royal family in 1887, thought to be worth tens of millions of dollar, was seized by the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution.
TheWrap notes that there are famous eggs in history, most notably the famed Faberge eggs. But they don’t have anything to do with Cleopatra.
According to History.com, the Faberge eggs were created for the Russian Royal Family. In 2010, an “American scrap-metal dealer” bought a golden egg with gems for just over $13,000. It ended up being worth $33 million because it was one of 50 Faberge eggs created for the Romanov family.
The Faberge eggs were Easter gifts, a tradition that started with Czar Alexander III in 1885, according to History.com.
In addition, the love affair between Mark Antony and Cleopatra was real. According to NPR, they are among history’s greatest lovers. According to Biography.com, she was the Queen of Egypt and he was a Roman soldier and statesman.
“The moment he saw her, Antony lost his head to her like a young man,” the Greek historian Appian wrote, according to Biography.com, which described a mausoleum she built: “Into the mausoleum she heaped gems, jewelry, works of art, coffers of gold, royal robes, stores of cinnamon and frankincense, necessities to her, luxuries to the rest of the world.” But no eggs are mentioned. He took his own life thinking she had, but it was a trick; she then took her own life as well. Thus, their story ended very tragically.
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