Fans of Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead may enjoy this- the sidelined character of Rosaline in Shakespeare’s immortal Romeo & Juliet is getting a revisionist film all her own. Rosaline is currently being set-up as at Universal Picture with British actress Felicity Jones pegged to headline the feature that will be from the perspective of Romeo’s first love, the one he dumped in favor of Juliet before the whole joint suicide pact happened. The film will be directed by first-time filmmaker Alex Timbers based on the novel When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle. Described as a feature akin to the Broadway smash Wicked, Rosaline will be set in the classical period of the Bard’s famous play but will utilize modern language in the telling the story from the mindset from the perspective of the dismissed Rosaline. The film will be written by the team of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, writers of the WGA-nominated (500) Days of Summer and last summer’s indie flick The Spectacular Now.
Jones, a rising star in her own right, broke through a few years back with Like Crazy, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (as well as a Special Jury Prize for her performance in it), and has been working steadily in films as varied as the currently released The Invisible Woman, in which she plays the young secret lover to Ralph Fiennes’ Charles Dickens, and this summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, where she is potentially among the film’s rogues gallery. She is also set to guest star on the critically acclaimed HBO series Girls. She previously co-starred as well in Julie Taymor’s 2010 Shakespeare adaptation The Tempest – hopefully Rosaline will be better received.
There’s no word yet on when filming is slated to start, but we will watch out for this upcoming title.
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