Making Shakespeare cool again.
Spike Lee is directing a film based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Titled Prince of Cats, the film will be set in the 1980’s and will reportedly have a “hip-hop twist.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will see the Montague and Capulet families in a hip hop world which involves “DJing, emceeing, breakdancing and graffiti.”
They continued: “The film centers on Tybalt and his Capulet brothers, who navigate Da People’s Republic of Brooklyn, where underground sword duelling — including katanas — with the rival Montagues blossoms into a vibrant world. That world includes [all the] hip-hop essentials.”
Hollywood has seen many versions of Romeo and Juliet brought to the screens over the years, including Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes in 1996.
The 1961 musical West Side Story was based on the famous Shakespearean tragedy and in 2011, the story even got an animated twist when Gnomeo and Juliet hit screens.
The emotional drama, about a white man driving an African-American pianist through the Deep South during the segregation era, was the shock winner of the ceremony’s biggest prize –resulting in widespread backlash from fans.
And it seems that Spike wasn’t too happy either, after his own movie BlackKklansman lost out on the biggest prize. According to various eyewitnesses at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre, the film-maker was seen heading up the aisles as the Green Book team accepted the award on stage.
“Spike Lee was visibly angry when Green Book was announced as the winner of best picture at the Oscars, waving his arms in disgust and appearing to try to storm out of the Dolby Theatre before he was stopped at the doors. He returned to his seat when the speeches were over,” the Associated Press’ Andrew Dalton wrote on Twitter.
