For a play that’s over 400 years old, Hamlet certainly doesn’t do too badly on the silver screen. It seems that every couple of years somebody feels the need to do something with the Bard’s most famous work. Hot on the heels of the news that the BBC will be filming David Tennant’s take on the part, comes the news that director Catherine Hardwicke (Lords Of Dogtown, Twilight) is planning a modern retelling of the tale, with Emile Hirsch set to star in the main role.
It’s not known yet whether it’ll be a Baz Luhrmann style take on the original text, or whether the story will be rewritten in modern English, although as Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) has been brought on to work on the screenplay, it’s likely it’ll be a complete retelling. There was a version of the original text set in the modern day that was made in 2000 and starred Ethan Hawke as the Danish prince, however despite being quite good, it wasn’t much of a success. However modern rewritings of Shakespeare can work too, with Tim Blake Nelson’s O, which set Othello in an American high school, being a case in point.
This time around they’ll be hoping Hardwicke can bring some of the Twilight magic to the story of the prince who spends four hours deciding whether to kill his uncle or not. Interestingly, the producers of the project credit the whole idea to Hirsch, who wanted to bring Hamlet to modern America.