‘Hamnet’: Chloe Zhao To Direct New Film About Shakespeare’s Wife

Fresh from her ratings triumph in the third and final series of Happy Valley, its star Sarah Lancashire is teaming up with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight to bring the story of William Shakespeare’s First Folio to screen.

Naman Ramachandran “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight is developing a drama series based on the life of William Shakespeare, based on a concept by double BAFTA-winning “Happy Valley” star Sarah Lancashire. The series is being developed with Banijay U.K.’s Kudos and Lancashire’s production company, Via Pictures, which she formed with Peter Salmon. It will be written by Knight and will be produced out of his Digbeth Loc. Studios in Birmingham by Kudos, in association with Via. The drama will tell the complete story of the glove-maker’s son who became the greatest storyteller in history and how his genius survived and thrived in an age of turmoil and terror, danger and disease. It aims to be the first full account of the passion, people and politics that made William Shakespeare the world’s most famous dramatist and the men and women around him who loved and labored, schemed and plotted, killed and connived in one of the most dangerous periods in history.

EXCLUSIVE: Content creator and entrepreneur Markiplier has entered production in Austin, TX, on Iron Lung, a new horror film that he’s starring in and directing from his own script.

Ncuti Gatwa will take on a starring role in the BBC’s celebrations for King Charles III’s coronation.

Supporting the real superheroes. The A-list celebrated some of the brightest scientists in the world at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony on Saturday, April 14.

Ellen DeGeneres is opening up about life at home.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Iconic French fashion house Saint Laurent is launching a film production banner spearheaded by its artistic director Anthony Vaccarello. Named Saint Laurent Productions, the subsidiary is kicking off with a trio of films from renowned filmmakers, including a pair of shorts world premiering at Cannes: “Strange Way of Life” by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Vaccarello, a cinephile who became the artistic director of Saint Laurent in 2016, said launching this new division gives him “the opportunity to expand the vision I have for Saint Laurent through a medium that has more permanence than clothes.”

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Audrey Diwan, director of the 2021 Venice Golden Lion winner “Happening,” has been named jury president of the 62nd annual Cannes’ Critics Week. Other jury members include Portuguese director of photography Rui Poças; German actor, choreographer and dancer Franz Rogowski; Indian journalist, curator and Berlinale programming advisor Meenakshi Shedde; and Sundance programming director Kim Yutani. Diwan, a former journalist, made her debut with “Losing It” in 2019. The filmmaker took home the Venice Film Festival’s top prize for her sophomore feature, the searing abortion drama “Happening.” She became only the second woman (after 2020’s Chloe Zhao) to win the Golden Lion since Agnès Varda, who won in 1985 for “Vagabond.”

Keanu Reeves is teaming up with Jonah Hill for a new film called Outcome.The new Apple Studios film has been co-written by Hill with Erza Woods. Hill will also direct the feature, which is described as a “dark Hollywood story” according to The Hollywood Reporter.Outcome will reportedly tell the story of Reef, who will be played by Reeves.

Pope Francis, only a few days after leaving the hospital, is presiding over religious observances during the holiest week in the Roman Catholic faith. As part of Good Friday services today, he took part in a celebration of the Passion of the Lord at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. 

Love The Weekender? Share it with a friend and spread the word!Sign Up For The WeekenderThe Tempest – An Immersive ExperienceWhen you think of Los Angeles, who doesn’t think of Shakespeare? The Shakespeare Center LA and the After Hours Theatre Company joined forces and created The Tempest: An Immersive Experience, a fully reimagined immersive performance based on William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.“The production takes place on the mysterious island featured in the play. Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, lives on this island with his daughter Miranda after being usurped by his brother Antonio and left to die at sea a decade earlier.

A while back there had been rumblings that Lucasfilm was looking to work with “Logan” director James Mangold on a possible film focused on Boba Fett, and while that ultimately never happened and he ended up tackling “Indiana Jones” for the studio instead with “Indiana Jones & The Dial of Destiny,” he’s officially joining the “Star Wars” franchise.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Dave Filoni and James Mangold are set to direct two new “Star Wars” movies, Disney revealed on Friday. The directors will helm two separate films in the franchise.

EXCLUSIVE: Orlando Bloom is set to play an American linguist in a series based on Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be The Place.

EXCLUSIVE: The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities scribe Tom Wolfe is the subject of new documentary Radical Wolfe, an adaptation of a 2015 Vanity Fair article by Moneyball and The Big Short author Michael Lewis who was a longtime personal friend of Wolfe.

EXCLUSIVE: After dominating the Oscars in 2021, Nomadland writer-director Chloé Zhao looks to be building out her future slate. Sources tell Deadline that she is set to direct an adaptation of Hamnet for Amblin Partners, Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions and Book of Shadows. The film is based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, who will adapt the script with Zhao.

Two-time Academy Award winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland,” “Eternals,” “The Rider”) will direct “Hamnet,” an adaptation of the critically acclaimed, award winning novel by Maggie O’Farrell, Amblin Partners, Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions and Book of Shadows announced on Tuesday.Zhao and O’Farrell will write the script together.The New York Times Bestselling historical fiction novel imagines the story of Agnes – the wife of the world’s most famous writer, William Shakespeare – as she struggles to come to terms with the loss of her only son, Hamnet. The novel charts the emotional, familial and artistic consequences of that loss, bringing to life a human and heart-stopping story as the backdrop to the creation of Shakespeare’s most famous play, Hamlet.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) will direct an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed Shakespeare-era novel “Hamnet” for Amblin Partners. Zhao is writing the screenplay with O’Farrell. Amblin Partners, Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions and Book of Shadows are all backing the project. O’Farrell’s New York Times bestseller reframes the creation of William Shakespeare’s most famous play, “Hamlet,” through the lens of the playwright’s wife Agnes (a variation on Anne Hathaway, the name of Shakespeare’s real wife), as she grieves the death of her only son, 11-year-old Hamnet, to the bubonic plauge. The novel also traces the beginnings of Agnes’ relationship with young Shakespeare — who is never named, known only as the world’s most famous playwright. In 2020, “Hamnet” won the Women’s Prize for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Ari Aster is quite the prankster.

Mubi is adding over 50 features from the Sony Pictures’ library to its U.S. streaming service. The mix of studio and arthouse fare includes Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, The Last Picture Show by Peter Bogdanovich and films from Wes Anderson, Pedro Almodovar and Guillermo Del Toro.