Filmmaker Roland Emmerich is most recognizable as that guy who likes to blow up the world. "Armageddon," "The Day After Tomorrow," "Independence Day," last year's "2012"... dude's just got a thing for global catastrophes. He's branching out some for his next project however, looking to the past for inspiration from the Bard himself, William Shakespeare.
As we've known for a bit, Emmerich will next tackle "Anonymous," which explores the controversial theory that the famed playwright did not, in fact, write his own work. The belief is that the works credited to Shakespeare were actually written by Edward de Vere, of Oxford. IMDb currently has the movie slated for a 2010 release, but we've known little more than that until now.
Emmerich revealed in an interview with Empire Online that his cast is starting to fill out. Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis and Rhys Ifans are all on board; Redgrave will play Queen Elizabeth, "Harry Potter" star Thewlis will play William Cecil "old and young," and Ifans will play the Earl of Oxford, the controversial figure who is believed to be the real author of the Bard's plays.
"It's a true English cast and I'm really proud of it," Emmerich said in the interview. "There’s 12 main characters and 20 or 30 other characters, and each of the characters is really good." He describes the story as a "historical thriller" split primarily between two factions.
"It’s the Tudors on one side and the Cecils on the other, and in between [the two] is the Queen. Through that story we tell how the plays written by the Earl of Oxford ended up labelled 'William Shakespeare.'"
If that 2010 release projection is accurate, expect to start hearing an awful lot more about this in the coming months if not weeks.
Who do you think wrote the plays: Shakespeare or this Edward character? Do you think Emmerich will find a way to play up the world in this period thriller?
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