Screenhead

Shakespeare enthusiasts might like the rearrangement of The Tempest by director Julie Taymor as she gathers a cast of exceptional talent. Even though the play centers on Prospero, an exiled duke-turned-sorcerer, Taymor’s alters the lead character Prospera so that Helen Mirren can take on the role. Whoa! Go Girl.

Mirren will be working with Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Ben Wishaw and Felicity Jones. Geoffrey Rush is all talk right now but looks to join the cast.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Taymor is hoping for a November start date in Hawaii. The Shakespeare play mixes romance with fraternal politics and the supernatural. As revised for the screen, it will center on Prospera, her daughter Miranda (Jones) and a shipwrecked crew full of Prospera’s enemies.

The island’s other inhabitants include Hounsou as the deformed slave Caliban and Wishaw as the airy spirit Ariel.

On the ship are rising comedy star Brand, playing Trinculo, a jester; Irons, as Alonso, the King of Naples; and Molina as the drunken butler Stephano. Rush would play Gonzalo, a royal adviser and old ally of Prospera’s.

The cast includes a high concentration of Oscar-winning stars: Mirren earned best actress honors for The Queen, while Irons took home the best actor trophy for Reversal of Fortune and Rush got the nod for Shine.

Hounsou won best supporting actor nominations for Blood Diamond and In America.

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Ed Harris directs as well as co-wrote with Robert Knott the film Appaloosa.  The western is set in 1882 in the Old West territory of New Mexico. Appaloosa pivots around city marshal Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and his deputy and partner Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), who made their status by keeping peace in the lawless towns springing up in the untamed land.In the small mining community of Appaloosa, a heartless, powerful rancher named Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons)  allowed his band of outlaws to run roughshod over the town. After the cold-blooded murder of Appaloosa’s city marshal, Cole and Hitch are hired to bring the murderer to justice.

Appaloosa opens wide October 3rd.

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