Just a couple of years after Ralph Fiennes took William Shakespeare's Coriolanus and turned it into a pretty gritty modern day drama, Ethan Hawke and his Hamlet director Michael Almereyda are doing the same thing with Cymbeline. Shakespeare's tragic tale of a war between the Romans and Celts have been dirtied up into a violent battle full of biker gangs, corrupt crime lords, and lots of heavy firepower.
Rounding up an impressive crew that includes Ed Harris, Anton Yelchin, Dakota Johnson, Milla Jojovich, and Penn Badgley, the first trailer packs a lot of shady characters and explosive action. No wonder it's already having some compare it to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. What's most impressive is the speed which Almereyda put this together, as it seems like only yesterday that the film was announced and already there's a considerable chunk of footage here and a new poster to go with it. Production began late last summer and this one's definitely on the fast track, although it has yet to gain U.S. distribution.
