I think Charlton Heston would've been a little too old for the role in 2003. And I do not think that M&C would have been half so accurate if filmed much earlier than it was - and I didn't see it at the cinema as it was because I though it was going to be 'Hollywood History'.

I mean, look how awful Captain Horatio Hornblower was as a film - and CS Forester himself was involved in adapting that for the screen. (Although, admittedly, Forester himself wasn't so accurate in his writing as POB was.)