Enduring tales: the movies you didn’t know were based on William Shakespeare classics
We all know at least one William Shakespeare tale incredibly well, whether that be the story of star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, or the gender-swapping comedy Twelfth Night. As the most influential writer in the history of literature, Shakespeare’s plays have been consumed for centuries, becoming mandatory learning for students all across the world.
For many high schoolers, Shakespeare’s plays can feel outdated, boring, and hard to read. Yet, most people consume much more Shakespeare than they perhaps think, even long after they’ve left education. His stories have provided the basis for many popular movies – and not just those that are clear adaptations of his work, such as Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet or Derek Jarman’s The Tempest. Shakespeare’s plays have actually provided the basis for many beloved classics, which, on the surface, seem like they have nothing to do with the Bard.
One of the most successful movies based on a Shakespeare play is Disney’s The Lion King, which uses Hamlet as the basis of its storyline. Thus, Simba reflects Hamlet’s character, both of whom are princes, and Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, is similar to Scar. By using a play about betrayal and a quest for power as the basis for their film, the creators of The Lion King made a child-friendly tale that proved the enduring and adaptable nature of Shakespeare’s work.
Perhaps less known is the fact that Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho was based on Henry IV and Henry V. At first glance, you might wonder how a story about gay male sex workers is related to Shakespeare, but certain elements, such as the characters’ personalities and specific scenes, like the robbery, are taken from the Bard’s work.
Of course, we can’t forget Akira Kurosawa, the Japanese filmmaker who famously adapted Shakespeare several times in his career. Starting with Throne of Blood in 1957, Kurosawa moved the happenings of Macbeth to Japan. A few years later, he delivered The Bad Sleep Well, loosely based on Hamlet, before putting his own spin on King Lear with Ran.
Yet, most interesting is the Shakespeare/rom-com phenomenon. Since the 1990s, a large handful of romantic comedies have used Shakespeare’s plays as source material, updating them with a distinctively modern and teen-orientated lens. Perhaps the most well-known is 10 Things I Hate About You, which is based on The Taming of the Shrew.
The movie features two sisters called Kat and Bianca, based on the play’s characters, Katherina and Bianca. In the play, Bianca cannot get married until Katherina is also wed, while in the movie, Bianca cannot have a boyfriend until Kat is dating, too, because of their father’s strict rules. There are many allusions to Shakespeare within the film, from Patrick’s last name, Verona, referencing Romeo and Juliet, and Mandella being openly obsessed with the Bard.
Then there’s She’s The Man, starring Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum, which draws from Twelfth Night, with Bynes’ character pretending to be a boy to get into a football team, only to fall for Tatum’s character. Borrowing similar names and alluding to the playwright, the movie was another successful teen adaptation of Shakespeare, proving that, at the core of each of his plays are universal themes which can easily be transformed into playful modern stories.
Shakespeare was particularly good at comedies, knowing exactly how to use humour, how to tease the audience, and how to find the right moment to drop a particularly funny line. Thus, it is no surprise that these centuries-old tales, made with audience engagement in mind, work well when adapted into rom-coms for modern viewers.
The 2000s also gave us Get Over It, based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, O, adapted from Othello, Deliver Us From Eva, inspired by The Taming of the Shrew, and John Tucker Must Die, loosely based on The Merry Wives of Windsor. These rom-coms all came just a couple of years after 10 Things I Hate About You, which proved that modernising Shakespeare was a genius – and profitable – idea.
10 Things I Hate About You was perhaps influenced by the success of Clueless just a few years earlier, based upon Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma. Clearly, these old stories aren’t as far removed from us as we often like to think. Attitudes, societal rules, fashion and technology might have advanced, but humans, at their core, really haven’t changed all that much. We still find ourselves in romantic dilemmas, experiencing family troubles and relying on the power of friendship, as both these classic and modernised stories suggest.
Most recently, the rom-com Anyone But You, starring Sydney Sweeney, was released, based on Much Ado About Nothing. While it received mixed reviews, it grossed a whopping $219million, which is rare for a rom-com these days. Perhaps Shakespeare is the key to the well-needed rom-com renaissance.