Leonardo DiCaprio must have enjoyed working with Baz Luhrmann on The Great Gatsby . A new report indicates that the two may team up yet again for an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy Hamlet .
Luhrmann spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his next project after Gatsby , confessing that he’d love to take on Hamlet. Specifically, he answered to a question about which movie he’d like to cast Leonardo DiCaprio in.
“To me, Gatsby is the American Hamlet ,” Luhrmann said. “What else could we possibly do as a follow-up? It’s just a dream at this point.”
It wouldn’t be the first time either Luhrmann or DiCaprio took on Shakespeare . In fact, it wouldn’t be the first time they took on a signature Shakespeare play together . In 1996, Luhrmann cast DiCaprio as Romeo in his Romeo + Juliet , an adaptation of the classic tragic romance set against a modern day aesthetic.
The film received mostly positive reviews, and was a box office success. It also arguably helped launch DiCaprio’s adult career.
Though at this point a new Hamlet adaptation is, as Luhrmann says, “just a dream,” it is a story that has been adapted multiple times across different media. Acting greats like Mel Gibson and Laurence Olivier have taken definitive turns in the role, while Ethan Hawke played the character in the 2000 film adaptation set against a modern day backdrop.
Modernizing the aesthetic of Shakespeare’s work isn’t terribly uncommon, and since Luhrmann has done it himself, it’s hard to say whether his Hamlet would keep the medieval setting of the play or move into modern times. There’s always that third option, too: Keeping it in medieval times, but having Jay-Z score some anachronistic music for it.
What do you think? Would Leonardo DiCaprio and Baz Luhrmann be a good team for Hamlet ?
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