The Scottish Play's The Thing
Sean Bean in Macbeth
Shakespeare's getting the movie treatment again. The lucky Bard.
adaptation wringer once more, with The Jacket's John Maybury
directing Vincent Regan's script Come Like Shadows.
years ago – is the lead, with Narnia's Tilda Swinton stepping into
the role of Lady Macbeth. According to Variety, the film will use a
period setting, but will be accessible to modern audiences.
"Shadows" Descend On Bean & Swinton
Posted: Wednesday June 28th 2006 1:37am
Source: Production Weekly
Author: Garth Franklin
Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton are set to star in "Come Like Shadows," an
adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" that is slotted to shoot in
Scotland in late fall reports Variety.
Maybury ("The Jacket") will direct a script adaptation by Vincent
Regan. Bean will play Macbeth, a role he essayed in London's West End
three years ago, and Swinton will play his wife Lady Macbeth.
part of the mix, with the film set to use his EuropaCorp
post-production facility in Normandy, France.
Check it Out, a Meaty Role for Sean Bean!
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Casting, Warner Brothers, Newsstand
Back when the news came out about the cast for the Hitcher remake, I lamented the fact that Sean Bean has somehow turned into the foreign guy that Hollywood tends to cast as a heavy in pretty much anything (either that or he's a really boring, barely-written token male), a tendency that is very much at odds with both his early career and a lot of the TV work he does in England. Well, today comes news that he's been cast in a part that might actually allow him to, you know, act a little bit -- hooray!
'Shadows' falls on thesps
Steven Soderbergh is aboard as executive producer. Luc Besson also is part of the mix, with the film set to use his EuropaCorp post-production facility in Normandy, France.
Pic is a traditional period piece, but it is designed to be user-friendly to a contemporary audience. Bean, who's coming off "Silent Hill" and "North Country," will play Macbeth, a role he essayed in London's West End three years ago.
Swinton, who was last seen in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and who just wrapped "Michael Clayton" opposite George Clooney, plays Lady Macbeth. She previously collaborated with Maybury in the filmed version of her one-woman show, "Man to Man."
Bean and Swinton made their screen debuts together, playing lovers in the 1986 film "Caravaggio."
01 July 2006
Daggers drawn as Hollywood rivals do battle over Macbeth
BRIAN PENDREIGH
"DOUBLE, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."
Four centuries after Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, two rival sets of
film-makers are battling to produce a Hollywood version of the
"Scottish play".
Both have major players in the film world behind them and both have
declared similar intentions of appealing to a modern audience with
special effects that play up the supernatural elements of the classic
drama.
One version has Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman as Shakespeare's
tragic Scottish king.
But the other, titled Come Like Shadows, has taken a huge leap
forward in the race with the casting of two major stars. Sean Bean, star of
the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the James Bond film GoldenEye and the
Sharpe TV dramas, will play Macbeth.
Tilda Swinton, the Scot whose stock has risen dramatically since
appearing as the witch in The Chronicles of Narnia, will be the
ambitious wife who drives him to murder and ultimately despair.
As well as Bean and Swinton, Come Like Shadows, which has a £5.4m
budget, also has some big names behind the camera.
Steven Soderbergh, the American who directed Erin Brockovich and
Ocean's Eleven, is executive producer, and Luc Besson, the French
director of The Fifth Element, is also involved.
John Maybury, whose films include the fantasy thriller The Jacket and
the acclaimed Francis Bacon biopic Love is the Devil, will be
director.
Nick Saunders, a Los Angeles-based producer who is currently in the
UK setting up Come Like Shadows, said: "I'm not worried about what
anybody else is doing. We've got a John Maybury film with Sean Bean
and Tilda Swinton and I think that stands on its own two feet."
Saunders said the producers would be "putting a spin" on Macbeth for
a modern audience. "It's not modern dress. It's going to be an
accessible, but classic interpretation of Macbeth," he said.
Witches, battle scenes and violent action could well appeal to an
audience more familiar with Harry Potter and Quentin Tarantino than
with Shakespeare.
"The elements of the supernatural are something we definitely want to
play up," Saunders added. "We're going to take full advantage of the
visual aspects of film. We are taking the tack that if Shakespeare
were alive today what would he do?"
The dialogue would not be updated, just "scaled back. It's more a
case of removing certain lines or words where the meaning may be lost on
the modern ear."
Come Like Shadows, which takes its title from a line in the play, is
scheduled to be filmed in Scotland in October.
Although a spokesman for Antidote Films, which is behind the rival
adaptation, said their project was still very much alive, he admitted
there was no firm timetable.
Belle Doyle, head of the locations section at the national film
agency Scottish Screen, confirmed it had received active inquiries from both
sets of film-makers.
"It's such a good story that it's one of those things that just keeps
popping up in all sorts of guises," she said.
Macbeth has been adapted for film and television on dozens of
previous occasions, often in a foreign language or with an entirely different
setting. Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa and Roman Polanski have all
made esteemed versions, but Saunders maintains the time is right for a
major new production.
"Every generation really needs its version of some of the classics
and I think Macbeth is one of those kind of stories," he said.
Vincent Regan, a Welsh actor with a passion for Shakespeare, wrote
his script in the late 1990s and linked up with Besson when he appeared
in a minor role in his film of Joan of Arc.
It got a new lease of life in 2003 when Regan appeared in the epic
Troy and met both Saunders and Bean. The latter had recently played
Macbeth on the West End stage and was keen to reprise the role on
screen.
Saunders signed up as producer at the end of last year and approached
director Maybury, whose initial reaction was "one of absolute terror"
because of the distinguished previous versions.
For the role of Lady Macbeth he thought of Swinton, with whom he had
worked on several films. He phoned her and she confirmed that she
would be interested.
Swinton's agent Christian Hodell said the actress loved Shakespeare
and she was attracted by the challenge of the role, the chance to
work with Maybury again and to work close to home in Scotland.
Maybury, who with Saunders will begin casting supporting roles this
week, admitted he would be taking "liberties" with the text to
emphasise the supernatural elements.
"It's not going to be specifically targeted to Shakespearean
aficionados," he said. "In fact I'm sure there will be a lot of them
who will oppose what I'm trying to do."
The outline is similar to the version envisaged by Antidote Films,
which has previously produced a number of acclaimed independent
productions, including Thirteen with Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel
Wood.
They are promising a "visceral adaptation... that emphasises the
potently cinematic aspects of the drama".
Seymour Hoffman was committed to starring in their version before
winning his Oscar for Capote earlier this year. The award makes the
film more alluring to financiers, but it also makes the star more
attractive to other producers and he is committed to another project
in the autumn. Jennifer Connelly was lined up to play Lady Macbeth
but it is not clear whether she is still involved.
Maybury said he was unconcerned by a rival version, which is not
uncommon when producing classics. "It's like buses - none come along
and then three come along at the same time," he said. "Philip Seymour
Hoffman is a big name and he's a very good actor, but it doesn't
bother me. If it's a running race, at the moment, we are in the
lead."
THE SCOTTISH PLAY: FROM JAPANESE CLASSICS TO BINMEN
THERE have been dozens, if not hundreds, of film and TV adaptations
of Macbeth, many of them in foreign languages or with exotic settings,
for Macbeth has proven one of Shakespeare's most adaptable stories.
The most celebrated version is probably Japanese director Akira
Kurosawa's 1957 film Throne Of Blood.
Around the same time, the British film Joe Macbeth re-told the story
with the principal character recast as a gangster. Lady Macbeth was
now Lily Macbeth and Banquo was Banky, with Sid James in the role.
Just last year a BBC TV production relocated the drama in an upmarket
restaurant, with Vincent Regan (who has written the script for the
new film with Bean and Swinton) as owner Duncan Docherty, James McAvoy as
his ambitious chef, another Joe Macbeth, and the three witches
replaced by three binmen.
Alluding to the theatrical superstition that prohibits mention of the
play's title, one character is castigated for referring to Gordon
Ramsay by name and told he should be referred to only as "the
Scottish chef".
The earliest films of Macbeth date from the silent era. Orson Welles
staged a voodoo theatre production in Harlem in 1936 and later shot a
comparatively conventional film version on the lot at Republic,
although he had to use sets normally used for Westerns.
Roman Polanski's 1971 version is famous for its violence, its nude
sleepwalking scene by Francesca Annis and the appearance of a young
Keith Chegwin as Fleance.
Bean and Swinton lead 'user-friendly' Macbeth
Continuing cinema's perennial fascination with Shakespeare, a new adaptation of Macbeth is in the works, according to Variety.
Steven Soderbergh will be involved as an executive producer of the independently-financed project from Milk & One Sugar.
Indie outfit founders move on