Here is your first look at Helen Mirren and her ravishing costuming in Julie Taymor’s upcoming William Shakespeare adaptation, “The Tempest.”
The film will see Mirren portray the gender bending Prospera, a royal who finds herself in exile on an island void of society after being usurped by her brother and sent to sea to die with her daughter, played by Felicity Jones — as seen above. David Strathairn, Djimon Hounsou, Reeve Carney, Alan Cumming, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper, Ben Whishaw and Russell Brand also co-star.
Despite shooting on the film finishing in January of last year, its release was scheduled for late 2010 due to a lengthy SFX-dominated post-production process and a potential award-season run. However, even that now is questionable after the closure of its parent company Miramax left its future, along with several other pics, up in the air. However, rumors of a potential buyout, by founders the Weinsteins, brings hope that “The Tempest” can still find its way to theaters by year’s end.
The unlucky Taymor also has the near-cursed Broadway production of “Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark” which has faced every imaginable pre-production complication, the latest being the search for a new leading lady after Evan Rachel Wood withdrew. Reeve Carney and Alan Cumming, both of whom also co-star in “Tempest,” are still attached to star with the production now reportedly set for a fall or winter release with a replacement for Wood also nearing announcement.
Interestingly, the money recuperation comparison now theoretically stands at five years of sold out shows with every audience member buying a t-shirt. Good luck with that.
If they can just find their respective ways to the screen and stage, “The Tempest” and the Spider-man musical will surely make for quite the spectacle. Until then, the picture of Mirren above and a visit to the official website for “Turn Off The Dark,” which provides what sounds like a tiny taste of Bono and The Edge’s work for the production, will have to suffice for now.
It feels as if I've been waiting forever for Mirren's version of the Tempest. I hope it finally gets released from whatever post production prison now holding it hostage.
Just as the future was thwarting the Hadron Collider from ending the world, heroes of the hereafter have traveled back in time to stop what is to be one of the worst musicals of all time. God help us.