Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

Sony developing new Shakespeare release Verona

William Shakespeare’s most famed work, the romantic drama Romeo and Juliet, has had numerous attempts at becoming a big screen hit. The 1936 George Cukor and 1968 Franco Zeffirelli versions and the loosely adapted musical West Side Story received acclaim while Baz Luhrmann failed in his 1996 update and the 2013 Julian Fellows edition has fell out of all memory. It then seems like a strange risk for Sony to be adapting it again in a film titled Verona. Casting talk is yet to begin but we’ve heard that Alice in Wonderland producer Joe Roth is shooting for a 300-style aesthetic for the project.

Verona – 2017?

James McAvoy is Frankenstein and new poster for Romeo and Juliet

Next year, two Frankenstein films are to be released but at different ends of 2014. The first is I, Frankenstein and is from director Stewart Beattie (writer of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Australia and GI Joe: Rise of Cobra plus director of Tomorrow, When the War Began). It’s set in modern day with Aaron Eckhart as the Frankenstein Monster as he’s caught up in a war between two immortal clans and stars Bill Nighy (Pirates of the Caribbean, Love Actually) and Miranda Otto (The Lord of the Rings, War of the Worlds). The year’s other release is simply titled Frankenstein.

It has a screenplay by Max Landis (son of horror legend John Landis) and directed by Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin). The only casting so far was Daniel Radcliffe. The English star is most likely to be remembered by all for the Harry Potter films but has done excellent post-Potter work with The Woman In Black (with Ciaran Hinds), Kill Your Darlings (with Dane de Haan, Elizabeth Olsen and Ben Foster) and the upcoming Horns (with Juno Temple).

He will play Igor, the assistant of Victor Frankenstein who’s casting is the subject of this post. James McAvoy will be taking the main role as the lonely, mad scientist who robs the local cemeteries to put body parts into his monster. We’re still not sure who will be playing The Monster itself and whether this will introduce the Bride or if they’ll be producing something similar Danny Boyle’s stage-play where Johnny Lee Millar and Benedict Cumberbatch play both Victor and the Monster.

McAvoy will be best known for The Last King of Scotland (for which he won multiple awards), Wanted, The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and is now the young Charles Xavier in the X-Men films. He’s got plenty of upcoming projects now. After early this year’s Welcome to the Punch and Trance, he has Filth, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Hers and next year’s Bryan Singer superhero adaptation X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Finally, a new poster for Carlo Carlei’s new Shakespeare adaptation. It’s adapted by the Elizabethan playwright’s most famous production: Romeo and Juliet. True Grit’s Academy Award nominee Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth play the leading duo with Damian Lewis, Paul Giamatti, Ed Westwick and Stellan Skarsgard. The man who made Downton Abbey a worldwide success, Julian Fellowes writes a screenplay that’ll hopefully be staying truer to Shakespeare’s original than Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet’s modern setting or the complete garden themed revamp animation seen in Gnomeo and Juliet. Here’s the poster and an earlier trailer for Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet is out September 6th

Frankenstein is out October 17th 2014