After breaking records on Broadway, Denzel Washington is set to play Othello in a brand new feature film adaptation.
Denzel Washington has already brought us one memorable turn as a doomed Shakespearean hero in recent years, with his take on the ambitious and violent usurper Macbeth in Apple’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth collaborating with director Joel Coen.
However, following a highly successful opening on Broadway which has broken the record for the highest opening week gross ever, it looks as though his stage version of Othello may be making the same transition.
This isn’t entirely new news, given that Washington publicly introduced the idea of playing Othello back in November on The Today Show while out and about promoting Gladiator II. We wondered at the time if that meant that Washington was being lined up to take the title role opposite Daniel Craig in Barbara Broccoli’s planned take on the play, an adaptation that is based on an off-Broadway version of the story set in a military barracks and originally starring David Oyelowo as the troubled Moor.
That appears not to be the case, though, and it instead looks as though two distinct film adaptations are being lined up. Whereas the Broccoli-produced version features Daniel Craig as the villainous Iago, the Washington one stars Jake Gyllenhaal in the Iago role, with Kenny Leon directing.
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Things appear to be in the early stages right now, with Leon telling The Hollywood Reporter that “absolutely” talks have happened regarding turning the play into a film, adding, “I would hope so, absolutely, that’s what I would hope would happen.”
Leon adds that he doesn’t know what Othello would look like as a film as it’s “two different art forms” and, for now, they’re focusing on the stage version – “we’re trying to get this up first.”
So it now looks like we have two takes on Othello heading for feature film adaptation. Interestingly, the Washington version is set in the future, so the two certainly seem distinct enough for each version to carve out a space of its own. We’ll bring you more on either version of Othello as we hear it.
