Given his propensity for psychologically intense, thematically knotty, historically entrenched period projects, it’s almost surprising that Robert Eggers hasn’t take on one of William Shakespeare’s plays already. Sure, we’ve sort of already had one from the Nosferatu auteur already: his Norse epic The Northman shares the same Scandinavian source material as Shakespeare’s own Hamlet. But even so, Eggers hasn’t directly tackled any of the Bard’s works before… until now. Per THR‘s reporting, Focus Features has beaten off A24, Sony, and Warner Bros. to land a Robert Eggers directed adaptation of *checks notes* Romeo And Juliet.
Given Eggers’ predominantly horror-leaning oeuvre to date, you could be forgiven for thinking the man behind The Witch and The Lighthouse might’ve tackled one of Shakespeare’s more bloody or brooding works first — Titus Andronicus perhaps, or Macbeth, maybe. But according to THR‘s sources, Eggers’ take on arguably the world’s most famous love story has commanded a near-$80 million deal at Focus, and the details-focused filmmaker is already reportedly set to leave his indelible mark on the tragedy by having his actors speak in Old English, which — given the play’s original 14th century Italy setting — may suggest a take set in an earlier time and different place. And if you think about it, Eggers has done the whole ‘age-gap forbidden romance that inexorably leads to death’ thing before with Nosferatu, so R&J isn’t entirely unfamiliar territory.
According to THR, Romeo And Juliet will be Eggers’ next movie following the release of werewolf horror, er, Werwulf on New Year’s Day, 2027. Where exactly that leaves the perpetually booked and busy filmmaker’s Labyrinth sequel and Willem Dafoe led A Christmas Carol movies remains to be seen at this stage, but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t very curious to see Eggers’ rendering of the Bard’s star-cross’d tale of violent delights and violent ends. Somehow, we reckon it probably won’t go down the Baz Luhrmann route…
Sources Links
THR
