After Werwulf, Robert Eggers plans on mucking up Romeo And Juliet

This actually isn’t so far outside Eggers’ wheelhouse as it might seem. His 2022 feature, The Northman, is essentially Hamlet, sort of. The Northman followed the Viking myth of Amleth, the legend that inspired the immortal bard’s Hamlet. Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet has a similar lineage, with the Roman myth of Pyramus and Thisbe from Metamorphoses serving as a proto-version of the famed tragedy. THR‘s sources say the film will “feature actors speaking in Olde English,” for some reason. Romeo And Juliet wasn’t written in Olde English. In fact, the play was written centuries after Olde English fell out of use. But it does play up the difficult-to-parse dialogue that Eggers built his career on, even if it would be better for the lovers to speak Italian. 

Eggers’ latest will continue his relationship with Focus Features, following The Northman, Nosferatu, and Werwulf later this year. Focus won the film in a bidding war against Sony, Warner Bros., and Eggers’ old pals at A24, which handled the director’s first two films, The Witch and The Lighthouse.