Hollywood is back on the banks of the Tiber

Rome

INSIDE the Cinecittà film studios, originally built by Mussolini in part to produce fascist propaganda, a catapult is parked beside Soundstage 13. Not far away, craftsmen touch up chariots. The props are for the remake of the 1959 swords-and-sandals epic, Ben-Hur, which is consuming much of the vast studio lot, if not all of it.

Five soundstages are being used to film the Ben Stiller comedy Zoolander 2. And crews for the James Bond thriller Spectre used the studio in March while shooting scenes around Rome, including at the Ponte Sisto, the ancient pedestrian bridge over the Tiber River, and along the boulevards of Nomentano.