Hollywood seems to be in its adaptation era. Studios keep returning to familiar stories, and everyone has a theory about why: built-in box office appeal, a shortage of original ideas, or the chance to tell a beloved story in a new way. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey showed just how big a familiar story can become. Now there’s another adaptation in the works that I’m especially excited about: Robert Eggers is taking on Romeo and Juliet.
If you don’t know Eggers, buckle up. I’ve seen three of his movies, and every time I press play, I’m entranced, deeply unsettled, and unable to look away. His films feel as though they’ve been pulled out of another century, like he invented a time machine and forgot to tell the rest of us. Afterward, I always end up reading about his research and creative process to find out how much thought went into the details. If you’ve seen any of his films, I highly recommend going down that rabbit hole.
Eggers made his feature debut with The Witch, then directed The Lighthouse, starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. More recently, he brought Nosferatu back to the screen with Bill Skarsgård and Lily-Rose Depp. If those films tell us anything, it’s that an Eggers version of a familiar story probably won’t feel very familiar.
That’s what makes Romeo and Juliet such an interesting choice. We all know the story of two young lovers whose families hate each other, and many of us watched an adaptation in seventh-grade English class. I have a feeling this won’t be the version a teacher wheels in for movie day.
There’s already plenty of darkness in Shakespeare’s play: obsession, violence, secrecy, and two people willing to risk everything for a relationship that barely has time to begin. Eggers doesn’t have to turn Romeo and Juliet into a horror movie to make those parts unsettling. I’m excited to see which details he brings forward and whether he can make a story I know by heart feel strange again.
I’ve already added it to my Letterboxd watchlist. Now I’m waiting to see what happens when the director who made me uncomfortable watching a lighthouse turns his attention to literature’s most famous young lovers.