Scandinavian star Noomi Rapace (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) has signed on to play a version of Shakespeare‘s famed Danish Prince Hamlet in a new film adaptation from director Ali Abbasi (Border).
Abbasi will reunite with his Danish Border producers Meta Film for the project. Iceland’s Sjón, who co-wrote Robert Eggers‘ upcoming The Northman, is penning the script. Meta Film‘s Stine Meldgaard Madsen will produce in collaboration with Boom Films.
Principle photography is set for autumn 2021.
“Hamlet is a dream project in its purest and most explosive way,” said Rapace in a statement. “I’ve been hoping, dreaming, wishing for this as long as I’ve been an actress. I base this as much on the material as on the creative alliance that surrounds it… To take on a Danish story with a Scandinavian touch and bring it out into the world with this group of people is a dream.”
Quipped Abbasi: “Shakespeare stole the Hamlet story from us. Now it’s our turn to claim it back and make a version so insane and so bloody that it makes him turn in his grave. Let’s make Hamlet great again!”
Details of the project are still under wraps but given the participants’ credentials — Abbasi‘s Border was a sleeper hit and picked up an Oscar nomination, Rapace is one of Europe’s most bankable, if eclectic, actresses, with credits that include Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus and Guy Ritchie‘s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows — Hamlet is certain to attract attention from the international art-house circuit.
Shakespeare‘s play — in which the Danish prince enacts bloody revenge on his uncle for killing Hamlet’s father and marrying his mother — has been adapted for the screen numerous times, including Franco Zeffirelli‘s 1990 take starring Mel Gibson as Hamlet, Michael Almereyda‘s modern-day Hamlet (2000) featuring Ethan Hawke and Kenneth Branagh‘s epic four-hour version from 1996.