When history keeps repeating: The literary work adapted the most number of times for cinema
Remakes are increasingly becoming viewed as a scourge on cinema, so spare a thought for the literary work that’s been adapted more times than any other, with the exact same narrative unfolding in almost the exact same way dozens upon dozens of times.
It stands to reason that the most heavily-adapted authors in history are the ones who find their stories being repurposed more than any others, which makes it entirely fitting that the most prolific page-to-screen translation in the history of cinema hails from the penmanship of the person to have seen their writings become the subject of more features than anybody else, ever.
It shouldn’t come as a shock to discover that person is William Shakespeare, with Hamlet the most popular of the Bard’s back catalogue to mine for cinematic gold. Even though there hasn’t been a major movie based on the play for well over a decade, it’s still streets ahead of the competition having been adapted more than 50 times over the course of more than 100 years.
That’s not even including spins, riffs, twists, and loose interpretations like The Lion King, Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well, Robert Eggers’ The Northman, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, or V. K. Prakash’s Karmayogi, either, as the tried-and-trusted tale first performed in the 1600s in its truest form has been the subject of more than half a century’s worth of cinema.
The first arrived in 1907 and was directed by and starred the pioneering forefather of celluloid Georges Méliès in the title role, with countries including France, Italy, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Germany all mounting their own takes on Hamlet before the talkies had even arrived.
From there, the floodgates burst wide open, with a new Hamlet seemingly coming along every couple of years. The pipeline appears to have dried up somewhat, though, with the last notable adaptation having come in 2011 when Bruce Ramsay wrote, directed, and led the cast in a condensed 89-minute film that only scored a limited theatrical release in the filmmaker’s native Canada.
Among the most notable are noted Shakespeare fanboy Kenneth Branagh’s slavish 1996 recreation, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1990 spin that saw Mel Gibson turn down the leading role in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as a result, as well as Laurence Oliver’s 1948 grandstander.
Anyone but You recently underlined how Shakespeare’s works can still speak to a mass audience, albeit with the caveat it doesn’t market itself as such. Based on nothing but facts and history, it would be fair to say the world of motion pictures is probably overdue for the next Hamlet, but so far, there don’t appear to be any willing contenders prepared to add their names to the exhaustive list of creative talents who seized the tragedy by the horns and brought it to the screen.