William Shakespeare Archives | Otaku No Culture

With Juliet and the King, We Can Skip Meeting Prince Charming

Ashkan Rahgozar’s Juliet and the King offers a whimsical and insightful animated take on cultural differences, blending a traditional Disney-style fairy tale with 19th-century Iran.

Juliet and the King_poster — This movie played at the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival on July 26th.

When Juliet and The King, an animated film, blends a traditional Disney-style fairy tale with 19th-century Iran as its backdrop, the result is a compelling examination of cultural contrast. Set in the latter half of that century, this story offers writer-director Ashkan Rahgozar’s interpretation of how Persian society once viewed the world. While times have certainly evolved, the themes explored remain relevant and thought-provoking.

At the heart of this tale is Juliet (credited as Ghazal Shakeri according to the IMDB; English actress unknown), a young performer who captures the heart of Naser al-Din Shah (Behzad Omrani). He’s a well-traveled, art-appreciating ruler. After attending to royal duties by day, he frequents the theater at night. It’s during one such outing that he meets Juliet and becomes smitten. He soon persuades her to bring their production of Romeo and Juliet to Tehran. However, the replacement of some roles with local talent might mean that not everyone in the court understands the message of Shakespeare’s tragic romance.

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[VFF ’16] The Grubstake Gets Revisited for Shakespeare!

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By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempet)

The Grub Stake is a 1923 action-adventure silent film produced by Nell Shipman and directed by Bert Van Tuyle which never saw distribution when it finished production. The distributor went bankrupt and its fate even now is uncertain. Technically, it’s now in the public domain, and perhaps this early Canadian pioneer of the Hollywood scene cannot be any more happier to know from Heaven that it’s been reimagined and titled The Grubstake Remix.

A new musical score accompanies this product and instead of inter titles, performers recant the dialogue with Shakespearean splendour as the film plays in the background! The film takes on an entirely new dimension with dialogue from nearly every one of this bard’s plays — The Tempest, King Lear, Richard III and MacBeth being the most familiar — and no knowledge of each of this playwright’s material is really required to understand what’s going on.

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Benedict Cumberbatch on Set of The Hollow Crown

By james Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

Cumberbatch3 Photos of Benedict Cumberbatch in his role as Richard III have appeared on the internet. The photos, taken on October 20th, show Cumberbatch on the set of the BBC’s television series The Hollow Crown: War of the Roses. It is unknown if these are scenes from the Richard III episode or his appearance in Henry VI, Part II but they are being filmed around the Wells Cathedral in Somerset.

Hollow Crown is based off the works of William Shakespeare and focuses on England’s past monarchs.

The first series titled The Hollow Crown, contained stories on Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. The second series will feature Henry VI and Richard III.

In Richard III, Cumberbatch will star alongside Dame Judi Dench, Sophie Okonedo, Keeley Hawes, Sam Troughton, and James Fleet.

The Hollow Crown: War of the Roses will broadcast in 2016.

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Shakespeare & Star Wars Doth Not Necessarily Mix & Sequel News

With better dialogue in this film, maybe the Shakespearean treatment Verily A New Hope will not be as bad.

Just how easy is it to rewrite Star Wars into a Shakespearean play? To read the dialogue in iambic pentameter is one thing but to hear it is another. Until Disney (and George Lucas) authorizes Adam Long, one of the founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, to release a DVD of his stage production of Star Wars Shortened, fans will have to make do with Ian Doescher’s take of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily A New Hope. At least the performance is super fun to watch and the other an undistinguished read.

The idea of getting Luke, Obi-Wan or Vader speaking in old Elizabethan English is more of a novelty than compelling reading. Most of the dialogue is required to stay in canon within the screenplay Lucas wrote for A New Hope. When possible, Doescher makes use of a few lines better known from Shakespere’s other plays and includes them in his book. Bits of familiar dialogue from the tragedy Hamlet and the romance Romeo & Juliet will be recognized.

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