Tap this, Spartacus

Lucy (Xena) Lawless' hubby, Rob Tapert, is putting a local crew together for his latest venture Spartacus, to be filmed in New Zealand.

Tapert has done some biggies — The Evil Dead, The Grudge, Hercules, Xena — and he bagged Ms Xena, so he must be doing something right. Just think: if it weren't for Vanessa Angel getting sick in 1994 when she was due to play the little part of a warrior princess in the Hercules series, things would be very different.

Sources say, back in the day, when Lawless was still trying to pretend she wasn't a raving lesbian icon, she had a hissy fit at one of the "big five" talent agencies in LA and walked out in the middle of a meeting because they "didn't understand her".

Maybe the demanding behaviour had rubbed-off from her hubby. Apparently she was back on the set of Xena five weeks after giving birth to their son. Sheesh. But she was certainly a hit in some circles — the TV.com website gives her a "person score" of 9.6. Poor old hubby only gets 43 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Anyway, Spartacus. It's a re-telling of the classic Roman slave-turned-warrior story. There'll be Mr Spartacus, some guy Batiatus who owns the gladiator school, and two characters from Stanley Kubrick's Academy Award-winning 1960 movie adaptation, gladiators Crixus and Oenomaus.

They're not exactly TV-friendly names though are they? Lots of opportunity for nice burly young men, though. And rather than the long suffering, second-fiddle sheilas of Kubrick's version, there'll be "strong women".

Tapert's going for an R rating on this job, "embracing the brutality of the fights". According to PremiumHollywood.com, Tapert calls it a "hard-core, testosterone-driven action drama unlike anything on television right now" and "a totally … hard, hard show". That's something to live up to. The style and feel of the show will come from the violence, but with some tender bedroom and garden scenes to tone things down.

A source says the production company is worried they'll find it hard to recruit for some scenes that are a little on the nudie side. Women-only nude scenes, I tediously predict. When are we going to get some full-frontal male action?! And not just Kirk Douglas cavorting in a miniskirt. Mind you, those thighs … Grrrooowlll!

Renaissance Pictures aren't discounting anyone from around the world in their search for Spartacus himself. Like the Viggo Mortensens and Daniel Craigs of this world. But will they be rubbing each other in the bathtub like dirty old Marcus Crassus (Laurence Olivier) and Tony Curtis: "Do you eat oysters? My tastes include both snails and oysters." Mmm-hmm.