Well, here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, but according to Screen Daily, Andy Serkis and Nick Cave are collaborating on a motion-capture film version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s 1928 musical play, The Threepenny Opera.
Based on John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, Brecht and Weill’s version updates things from the 18th Century to Victorian London, where the anti-hero Macheath marries Polly Peachum. This displeases her father, who controls all the beggars in the city, and so he plots to have MacHeath hanged. It’s probably best known for producing the song Mack The Knife, which became a standard for crooners like Frank Sinatra.
Serkis announced the movie at the Berlin Film Festival, and it’ll be interesting to hear more, including why he feels it needs to be done as motion capture. He may be an expert in the field following LotR, King Kong and Tintin, but a musical play set in Victorian London that offers a Marxist critique on capitalism, isn’t a film that sounds as if it needs the full-on CG treatment. To be honest though, I can easily imagine this never happening, no matter how intriguing the prospect, as getting funding for a film like this is going to be tough.