I could not name a more famous writer than William Shakespeare. High school english looks at his plays; college classes dedicate whole semesters to the legendary iambic pentameter writer. He lived from 1564 to 1616, so why do we still study him today? People mention his complicated verbage or how he wrote all his plays in iambic pentameter. Me, I think it has to do with his themes that persist even into the modern world. Themes such as gender, class, love, and revenge. Many books now still use these classic themes in their writing.
Did you know there are well over 400 adaptations of Shakespeare in modern media? This includes both film and television shows. Besides direct adaptations, IMDb lists over 1800 movies that list Shakespeare as inspiration or wrote in some way. He inspires many stories in books, movies, and shows. Audiences for centuries, love his work time and time again. Some modern movies adapt the Shakespeare story to fit a more broader audience. Here are 5,6,7 movies you might not have known were based on Shakespeare plays.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
10 Things I hate About You is a wonderful romantic comedy starring Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. Cameron, a high school student, wants to take Bianca to the dance. However, her father will not let her go with a boy unless her older sister, Kat goes to the dance too. Kat can be considered antisocial, so their dad knew it would not happen. Cameron pays Patrick to convince Kat to go to the dance with him. With Kat going, Cameron can take Bianca to the dance.
The inspiration for this movie comes from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. In this play, the main character Petruchio is attempting to court Katherina. Katherina is considered a shrew because she is headstrong and ill tempered, similar to Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You. Katherina also has a younger sister named Bianca who many suitors are competing for. Can you see the similarities? Katherina and Kat, Bianca and Bianca?
West Side Story (1961, 2021)
West Side Story first became a musical in 1957. From there, Hollywood adapted the movie to the big screen twice, once in 1961 and much more recently in 2021. The newer movie features Ansel Elgort as Tony and Rachel Zegler as Maria. In this musical Tony and Maria are in different gangs. Tony is in the Jets while Maria’s brother is the leader of the Sharks. Tony and Maria meet at a neighborhood dance and fall in love instantly. Maria’s brother forbids her from seeing Tony. This leads to much conflict in the story and also the death of Tony.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet follows almost identically to this story. The main difference is the ending of the play, which everyone should know the ending to. Juliet’s family wanted nothing to do with Romeo’s family so Juliet devises a plan to fake her death allowing them to be together. Romeo sees her fake corpse and takes his own life where Juliet wakes up and sees dead Romeo and takes her life. Unlike West Side Story, both characters die. Maybe they changed the ending to better appeal to the modern audiences?
Warm Bodies (2013)
Warm Bodies stars Nicolas Hoult as R and Teresa Palmer as Julie. Just from the names of their characters alone can you guess the Shakespeare play? That’s right, another Romeo and Juliet story but with a strange twist. Warm Bodies follows the story of a zombie and a human. Talk about forbidden love. R sees Julie and his heart actually beats. This attracts him to Julie. Julie is weary at first because he’s a zombie but after he saves her from other zombies she starts feeling for him too.
Besides him being a zombie how is this love forbidden? Julie’s father is the leader of a group of survivors set on killing zombies to keep them surviving. Unlike both West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet, R and Juliet manage to survive for a happier, more uplifting ending to the movie. R turns back into a human signifying the end of the apocalypse.
Lion King (1994, 2019)
If you knew any of these movies were Shakespeare, it was probably this one. Disney’s Lion King tells the story of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with a more uplifting ending, and a less brooding main character. Mufasa rules over the pride lands in Africa with his son Simba. One day Scar sets up a trap allowing him to kill Mufasa and take over. Simba is exiled where he meets two friends. During Simba’s exile he runs into a seer who tells him his fathers spirit lives in him and he must face Scar and reclaim his throne. They battle it out and Simba is victorious, allowing him to reclaim his fathers throne.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, follows a similar yet more bleak story, as with all Shakespeare plays. Hamlet is long, but is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Here is the super summary. Hamlet’s uncle marries the recently widowed Queen Gertrude which makes him King of Denmark. One night Hamlet is brooding on the ramparts where he runs into a ghost who tells him he was killed by the uncle and asks Hamlet to avenge him. Hamlet agrees. Skipping a whole bunch of plot points Hamlet ends up dueling someone with a poisoned blade. The blade nicks him and they switch weapons where Hamlet stabs the poisoned blade into the man. Revealing the poison Hamlet rushes at his uncle and kills him before the poison ends up killing Hamlet.
Like I said, Hamlet is really long yet worth the read. You will see the similarities between the two stories very quickly. If you want more plot points, definitely look for a more in detail summary. Have you noticed the trend in adaptations? Shakespeare’s plays normally end in death where the adaptation is more upbeat and somewhat happier.
She’s the Man (2006)
In She’s the Man, Viola Hastings loves playing soccer, but one day the girls soccer team gets cut from the school. She attempts to join the boys team but the coaches refuse. Luckily, Viola has a twin brother, Sebastian, who goes to a boarding school. Sebastian asks Viola to cover for him where she joins the boys soccer team to try and prove she is good enough to be on the boys team at her school. Viola must live in Sebastian’s life all while trying to improve her soccer skills. In the end she reveals she isn’t Sebastian and scores the winning goal against her old school.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night does not involve the sport of soccer, unfortunately. However, Viola and her twin brother end up separated by a shipwreck where she decides to disguise herself as a man. She enters the duke’s service. The duke passes messages between her and someone he loves, which causes Viola to fall in love with the duke creating a love triangle. A man named Antonio, rescues Sebastian where they then set off to where Viola is. When he arrives, everyone is confused because Sebastian looks so much like the duke’s new servant. Viola reveals herself to be a woman where her and Sebastian can be reunited.
O (2001)
Similar to the other adaptions, O is set in a more modern setting, a high school. A basketball player, Odin, scores the game winning goal for his team. His coach gives him the MVP award for his outstanding performance. The coach’s son Hugo is on the team as well but Hugo is angry his father gave the medal to Odin and not him. To get his revenge, Hugo tells the dean of the school Odin assaulted his daughter. At a party after another basketball game Hugo tells Odin his girlfriend, the dean’s daughter is cheating on him. This leads Odin to start using drugs to cope with this stress. Eventually, he ends up killing his girlfriend and then himself. Unlike the other adaptations, this one does not have a happier ending.
Othello, on the other hand, takes place in Venice. Othello is a general in the military where he just married his beautiful wife Desdemona. A man named Iago is angry at Othello for promoting a man in the army over him, so he seeks his revenge. He tells Desdemona’s father she eloped without knowledge which enrages him. Othello is prepared and his guards stop the dad from violence. Iago convinces Othello his wife is cheating on him with the person he promoted. When Othello goes to confront Desdemona she denies his accusations where he smothers her. After, he figures out what Iago has done and ends his own life for taking an innocent life. O and Othello are probably the closest to one another than any other on this list.
Ex Machina (2014)
Ex Machina is more so inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest than adapting it. It takes the themes from the play without retelling a similar story. In Ex Machina, a computer genius Nathan, invites another man Caleb into his eccentric home. Caleb finds out Nathan only wants him there to see if his android can pass the turing test. Caleb and android, Ava, converse a lot where Caleb falls in love with her. Ava and Caleb hatch an escape plan after finding out Nathan intends to kill Ava and make a newer model. In there escape Nathan reveals Ava passed the turing test because she manipulated Caleb into loving her. Ava proves she never loved Caleb by leaving him behind while she escapes from the house.
In Shakespeare’s The Tempest a wizard lives on an island with his daughter and servants. Prospero, the wizard, uses his magic to separate people from a shipwreck on his island so he can take revenge for them stealing his throne. Throughout the play Prospero is manipulating people the entire time. For example, he manipulates a man into falling in love with his daughter Miranda. By the end of the play Prospero forgives most of the people on the island after he regains his throne.
You might ask how these are similar, and I would not judge you. Prospero and Nathan are alike in the sense they control everything on their little island. Prospero using magic with Nathen uses his computers. Nathan uses Ava to make Caleb fall in love with her while Prospero uses his daughter to make a character fall in love with her. Both Ava and the daughter lived a very sheltered life outside the normal world which allowed their respective father’s to use them for their own gain. Like I mentioned earlier, loosely based on similar themes not the same story.
Conclusion
These are the 7 adaptations I picked which tried to exclude the more obvious stories. Off the top of my head there are at least 3 movies titled Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story and Warm Bodies are not quite the same as Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare is still taught in schools for his diverse themes and poetic writing. We have learned about him for 400 years and will probably learn about him for another 400 years.
Have you seen any of these movies? Did you know they were based on Shakespeare plays? Do you think I missed any major ones? Let us know down below in the comets. We love to hear from you!
As always, happy reading and watching!