Cecil B. DeMille considered Richard Dix, William Gargan and Charles Bickford for the role of Marc Antony. DeMille settled on the final actor when he accidentally catching a test footage screening for newcomer Henry Wilcoxon.
Claudette Colbert was sick from April 10, 1934 to April 16, delaying the production.
A number of day-to-day schedule problems and delays appear to have been costume-related, in many cases because Claudette Colbert felt they didn't fit her correctly and was sending them back to the costume shop.
Costume designer Vicky Williams left the project because she was annoyed by what she perceived as a lack of organization in the department.
Daily Variety reported that the film was badly panned by Italian critics, one of whom called it a "travesty and a burlesque," when shown in Rome. It also was met with "catcalls and derisive laughter" from the audience.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by MCA ever since.
When Cecil B. DeMille was in pre-production on this film, he asked to screen the original version, Cleopatra with Theda Bara. No prints could be found on in Los Angeles, so a copy of it was borrowed from the Fox office in New York. After DeMille viewed the film it was sent back to Little Ferry, New Jersey. On July 9, 1937, a fire at the storage facility destroyed almost all of Fox's known archived prints, most likely including Cleopatra. The screening for DeMille's company, on February 15, 1934, may have been the last time anyone saw the legendary film.