Following "2001: A Space Odyssey", Kubrick originally planned to make a film about the life of the French emperor Napoleon. Fascinated by his life and own "self-destruction", Kubrick spent a great deal of time planning the film's development, and had conducted about two years of extensive research into Napoleon's life, reading several hundred books and gaining access to Napoleon's personal memoirs and commentaries. He also tried to see every film ever made about Napoleon and found none of them appealing, including Abel Gance's 1927 film which is generally considered to be a masterpiece, but for Kubrick, a "really terrible" movie. LoBrutto states that Napoleon was an ideal subject for Kubrick, embracing Kubrick's "passion for control, power, obsession, strategy, and the military", while Napoleon's psychological intensity and depth, logistical genius and war, sex, and the evil nature of man were all ingredients which deeply appealed to Kubrick.