The best part of the 2000 Hamlet adaptation starring Ethan Hawke may have been seeing Bill Murray attempt Shakespeare and be brutally murdered for doing so. Yet the same creative team behind this previous Shakespeare retelling are at it again. Deadling reports that Hawke and Hamlet writer/director Michael Almereyda will be teaming up once more to put one of the Bard’s lesser-known works – “Cymbeline”- up on the big screen.
And just like the previous Hamlet (see also: almost every other Shakespeare play put on film in the last twenty years), Cymbeline will place Shakespeare’s story in the present day. This will reportedly involve two lovers adrift in a sea of dirty cops battling Sons of Anarchy-style biker gangs, with a style not unlike ROMEO + JULIET. There’s no word yet on how this will tie into the actual plot of “Cymbeline,” which involves a king and his daughter, the latter marrying a common man against her father’s wishes. Also, the original play is considered to be somewhere between a comedy and a drama and, from the sound of it, this re-telling doesn’t seem like a laugh riot.
But let’s not pass judgement just yet (even though it’s both easy and fun). Hawke has his share of Shakespeare experience – not only with Hamlet, but on the actual stage, having performed in both “Macbeth” and “The Winter’s Tale.” And hey, maybe Bill Murray will show up again. One can always hope.
