Agora — our first glimpse of Alexandria

The Times of Malta has posted the first picture from the set of Agora, the Alejandro Amenábar film starring Rachel Weisz as 4th-century philosopher Hypatia, Oscar Isaac as Orestes and Sami Samir as St. Cyril of Alexandria. Quoth the Times: “The idea is to bring ancient Alexandria back to life, allowing the audience to see, feel and smell a remote civilisation as if it were as real as today, the director has been quoted as saying.” Does that mean they’ll be using less CGI to recreate the city than, say, Ridley Scott used to depict Rome in Gladiator (2000)? (Hat tip to ComingSoon.net.)