When your Hollywood career is officially super hot, like if you just appeared in a Star Wars movie and became the first man of Asian descent to ever win an acting Emmy, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Riz Ahmed happens to be in that very specific position, and while heâs still got this heat, heâs apparently going to use it to make a âcontemporary adaptationâ of Hamlet with himself in the lead. That comes from Deadline, which says Ahmed is currently âsealing a deal with Netflixâ to make this happenâand considering that the streaming service just said it wants to dramatically increase its production of original movies, Ahmedâs timing probably couldnât be better.
This new version of Hamlet was co-developed with writer Mike Lesslie, who Ahmed has known since college, and itâs set in a modern-day London struggling with âeconomic and political uncertainty.â It will reportedly involve âthemes of familiar honor, moral duty, and dynastic corruption,â all of which seem pretty standard for Hamlet.
