Once you’ve tackled “The Bible” and Stephenie Meyer I guess the only logical next choice is William Shakespeare and that appears to be exactly what Catherine Hardwicke will do. Entertainment Weekly reports Hardwicke will direct Emile Hirsch in a modern-day supernatural thriller based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet for Overture Films.
Hardwicke tells EW Hirsch, whom Hardwicke directed in Lords of Dogtown, came up with the idea and Hardwicke and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) are working on the screenplay. “I had never thought of it at all, until Emile mentioned the idea. At first, I thought it was scary and crazy, and then we read it aloud and I knew how to do it,” she told the site.
The story is said to take place at a small East Coast liberal arts college where Hamlet’s father is the president. The story will begin with Hamlet (Hirsch) returning home for his father’s funeral, only to learn that his uncle, who has taken over his father’s post, is responsible for his father’s murder.
Overture is looking at a quick turnaround on this one with hopes the script will be completed in the next few months, with production beginning shortly thereafter.
Should things work out this will end up being Hardwicke’s follow-up to last year’s hit film Twilight, which went on to make over $191 million domestically despite a dismal 49% critical rating at RottenTomatoes.
Other than Hamlet, Hardwicke has been named as directing Maximum Ride for Columbia Pictures based on a five-volume series of stories by James Patterson and If I Stay for Summit Entertainment based on Gayle Forman’s novel of the same name telling the story of the gifted classical musician Mia and her boyfriend, Adam, an up and coming indie-rock star. Torn between two paths in life, her art or her relationship, Mia is forced to make an even starker choice between life and death when she is caught in a fatal car accident with her family one snowy morning in Oregon.
