Sounds to me that they don’t want the movie to flop.
Perfectly reasonable.
Do they not teach history in high schools any more?
Cleopatra was NOT black. She was a member of the Ptolomaic Dynasty (Greek and Macedonian) who ruled over Egypt at the time. The Ptolomaic royal line was forbidden to inter-marry with native Egyptians, and during the later period of that Dynasty they only intermarried with their own siblings.