All hail Macbeth. The official trailer for the upcoming adaptation of one of William Shakespeare’s seminal tragedies has arrived. Starring Oscar nominated actor Michael Fassbender (12 Years Slave) as the power hungry Duke of Scotland and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) as his cunning bride. Justin Kurzel (The Snowtown Murders) directed and co-wrote this seemingly visually alluring new take on the Bard’s classic.
The film premiered to strong reviews as an in competition title at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and is set to open in limited release in the states on December 4, 2015. Yet, behind the scenes, something has appeared amidst with Macbeth for while now. The Weinstein Company purchased U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to the film all the way back in 2013. Yet they turned the completed film over to Radius, a division of The Weinstein Company that jointly releases titles theatrically and on VOD. In turn, Amazon will have first dibs on Macbeth‘s streaming rights shortly after it arrives in theaters- as of it yet, how short that window will be hasn’t been publicly revealed. Seems a bit odd for a film that at one point seemed to be a prime awards contender.
At any rate, the film seemed to produce a strong relationship between director Kurzel and actors Fassbender and Cotillard- the trio are currently filming the anticipated Assassin’s Creed together. Fassbender last was seen on screen in the indie feature Slow West; he next headlines the bio Steve Jobs and stars in the literary adaptation The Light Between Oceans. Coming up, the Shame star is set to reprise his role as Magneto in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, potentially return for Prometheus 2 and completed turn in Terrence Malick’s as-of-yet untitled film revolving around the Austin music scene. Cotillard, recently Oscar nominated for her gripping work in Two Days, One Night, recently completed work on Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World and may be soon joining an upcoming World War II epic directed by Robert Zemeckis (Flight).
Macbeth also stars Elizabeth Debicki (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.), Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation), David Thewlis (The Theory of Everything), Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction) and Paddy Considine (Pride). Macbeth has previously been brought to the screen several times, most notably with Orson Welles’ 1948 film version and Roman Polanski’s provocative 1971 adaptation.
Macbeth will open in limited release on December 4, 2015.
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