Forget Cliffs Notes, Shakespeare Heads To The Big Screen

Kenneth Branagh has a film coming out this Christmas he knows you’re going to love.

It has an all-star cast: himself, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Charlton Heston and Sir John Gielgud, to name a few.

And the story offers something for everyone - ghosts for “The X-Files” set, incest for daytime talk-show fans and enough sex and murder to make Bob Dole blanch.

Plus, the screenwriter is a proven hit-maker with fans worldwide.

What’s the name of this sure-fire blockbuster? It’s … uh … “Hamlet.” That’s right, the one by William Shakespeare, who bored generations of teenagers in high school English class, and who intimidates adults to this day.

But moviegoers should not be deterred. Hollywood is bringing out not one, not two, but four full-length movies based on plays by Shakespeare between now and Christmas Day.

And that doesn’t include “Richard III,” the long-missing, 1912 silent film recently discovered in an Oregon attic. It was reintroduced Tuesday at the annual American Film Institute festival in Los Angeles.

“I’d like to think they all help each other,” Branagh said in a phone interview from London. “I’m very happy they are all coming up. Of course - (the success) of this flurry will be dependent on how much money they all make.”

Ay, there’s the rub. The most popular of recent Shakespeare films - Branagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” a comedy released in 1993 - barely cleared $22 million gross domestically. By comparison, summertime action blockbusters often top $100 million a pop.

The two latest Shakespeare films failed dismally. Branagh’s “Othello,” from December of last year, cost $11 million to make and grossed about $2.5 million domestically, according to Exhibitor Relations Co., Inc. “Richard III,” starring renowned Shakespearean actor Ian McKellen as the bloodthirsty monarch, has grossed $2.7 million in the United States since its release Dec. 29, 1995. It cost United Artists $8 million to make.

Still some filmmakers - passionate about Shakespeare and egotistical enough to believe they will be the ones who leap the hurdles and attract a wide audience - remain undeterred:

“Looking for Richard,” Al Pacino’s documentary look at the making of a “Richard III” production, debuted in limited release on Oct. 11, and goes into wider release this week.

“Twelfth Night,” a comedy of mistaken identities directed by Shakespeare veteran Trevor Nunn, hits screens on Friday.

The flagrantly unorthodox “William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet,” directed by Baz Luhrmann, who crafted the funky arts film “Strictly Ballroom,” opened Friday.

And on Christmas Day, Branagh delivers his “Hamlet” - with not a word cut from the original play. It should come in between 3-1/2 and 4 hours in length.

“You have to be aware that (these films) could, in fact, satiate the appetite for Shakespeare,” admitted Chris Pula, president of marketing for Fine Line Cinema, which is releasing “Twelfth Night.” “They could also open up a whole new appetite for Shakespeare.”

As scholars point out, the potential is always there. In the right hands, Shakespeare can entrance and astonish with captivating stories and timeless insights that render characters created in the 16th century as real as today’s Gen-Xers and baby boomers.

“If you can sell Jane Austen, you can sell Shakespeare,” said film historian and author David Thomson, referring to the recent spate of Austen movies that clobbered skeptics’ low box-office expectations. “A lot more happens in Shakespeare than in Jane Austen.”

The success of such Austen movies as “Emma” and “Sense and Sensibility,” as well as “Much Ado” and Branagh’s earlier Shakespeare effort, “Henry V,” proves there is a market for high-brow, costume dramas based upon great works of literature, Thomson said.

“They are never going to be blockbusters,” he said. “But all those who deplore blockbusters like ‘Independence Day’ are going to take comfort.”

Yet a slice of the blockbuster-going audience may be what Luhrmann is driving for in his “Romeo and Juliet,” the most radical retooling of the Bard amongst this season’s bountiful crop.

“We set out to be as relentlessly entertaining as we could be in the telling of it,” Luhrmann said.

The film immerses the feuding Capulets and Montagues in a late 20th-century Verona that has gone mad with hatred between the families. The colors and the costumes are garish; the noises of the city overpower in their ferocity.

The young men pack guns, not the swords of the original play. The prince who keeps order in the city has metamorphosed into Capt. Prince, chief of police. His officers whirr around the city in black helicopters, breaking up the mushrooming gun battles between the warring families.

Peace only arrives when Romeo and Juliet are together - then, the havoc fades away, the bright colors vanish. The characters relax, as does the jangled audience.

The film patron who goes to this movie, Luhrmann said, “will be a certain kind of person, who’s into a film that is surprising and different and that has a very deep emotional heart.”

By contrast, the three other new releases demand less flexibility from their audiences.

“Twelfth Night,” though set in the Victorian rather than Elizabethan era, charms with the typical hallmarks of historical productions: rich colors, lush sets, classic accents and utterly impractical long skirts.

“Looking for Richard” takes a documentary approach to Shakespeare; still, the film is based on a largely traditional presentation of “Richard III.”

Then there’s “Hamlet,” the culmination of Branagh’s yearslong dream to direct and star in an epic production of the grand tragedy.

“None of the original text is cut,” Branagh gushed enthusiastically. “It’s somewhere between 3-1/2 to 4 hours with an intermission. That’s the first time on film this has been done.”

Whew - that description alone leaves Jim Frederick pale. He is the marketing director for Castle Rock Entertainment, which is distributing “Hamlet.” It’s his job to persuade the public to see the film.

“From a marketing standpoint, yes, it’s a little daunting,” he said.

He plans to tout the movie as an event - after all, he noted, anything that consumes an entire evening must fit that description.

“It’s a huge commitment for the moviegoing person looking for entertainment,” he allowed. “Frankly, no matter what we do, the person has to be game for that experience.”

That’s a big risk for Castle Rock, particularly when “Hamlet” cost roughly $18 million to make, according to Exhibitor Relations.

“For the studio, this is something we think will have a life 100 years from now,” Frederick said. “We hope it’s the definitive version of one of the greatest works ever written.

“This is one for the time capsule.”