Yet another production of Shakespeare’s tragic Love Story is about to hit the big screen …. and its looking real good so far

If I were William Shakespeare I would have so sued my agent by now.  For the past 500 years, his Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet  had been adapted literally hundreds of times for stage, film, musical, TV and opera venues, and the poor man didn’t get paid a single groat for it.  Asides from all the prestigious productions at the RSC in Stratford UK every major Hollywood star, and many of the minor ones, have fancied their chances of performing in the world’s greatest love story: it has made (and ended) careers.  And just when you think there couldn’t be room for yet another single production, one pops up.

Our two personal favorites to date include Franco Zeffirelli’s film of 1968 starring a very young Leonard Whiting as Romeo and Olivia Hussey as Juliet , and adding some gravitas was  Laurence Olivier who spoke the film’s prologue and epilogue.

It was both a critical and commercial  sucress because it was the first adaptation to cast actors close to the age of the characters from the original play. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design. Additionally, it was nominated for Best Director and Best Picture, making it the last Shakespearean film to be nominated for the latter category. Whiting and Hussey both won Golden Globe Awards for Most Promising Newcomers.

Our second favorite is from 1996 when Baz Lurhmann the most commercially successful Australian director, with four of his films in the top ten highest worldwide grossing Australian films of all time, directed Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the starcrosed lovers. It was extremly well received and at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival in 1997, DiCaprio won the Silver Bear for Best Actor and Luhrmann won the Alfred Bauer Prize. At the 69th Academy Awards, Catherine Martin and Brigitte Broch were nominated for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. In 2005, the film was included on the BFI list of the “50 films you should watch by the age of 14”.

Now heading for  movie theaters this June is an original pop musical reimagining of R + J directed by Timothy Scott Bogart that is promising  to “breathe new life into Shakespeare’s timeless tale, beginning a bold movie-musical trilogy’.  We initially had a very typical English skeptical disbelief (!) but after seeing the first trailer (below) we are coming around to the fact that it may even become another favorite.  Its an impressuve cast which includes Rebel Wilson, Jason Isaacs, Rupert Everett, Rupert Graves, Dan Fogler, Derek Jacobi, Clara Rugaard, Jamie Ward, and more.

Poor William, if its good or bad, he will still not see a single cent from it , let alone any shiny award!