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Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal's Othello might go from record breaking Broadway hit to the big screen, says director
Could the most successful Broadway show of all time repeat its success in multiplexes?
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Sure, you don’t have $900 to see Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal star in Othello on Broadway — yes, you read right; Broadway tickets aren’t cheap, friends — but that doesn’t mean you’ll be forever robbed of a chance to see the buzziest take on Shakespeare in years: plans may be afoot to bring this version of the Bard’s classic to the big screen.
Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet at the play’s opening, director Kenny Leon said that there have already been discussions about adapting the latest version of the play into a movie, with Washington attached. Gyllenhaal’s involvement is also being discussed, he added: “I would hope so, absolutely, that’s what I would hope would happen,” Leon said of the actor signing on.
While he wouldn’t be drawn into how faithful a Leon-directed on-screen Othello would be to the stage version — theater and cinema are “two different art forms,” he reasoned — both versions would ideally “tell the same truth.”
Any movie version lies at some unknown point in the future, the director added, saying that “we’re trying to get this up first,” talking about the stage version, which runs at the Ethel Barrymore Theater through June 8. (It had already become the highest-grossing Broadway play of all time based on resales.) No matter when it happens, however, Leon is confident the movie will seem timely. “This play is about pure love but what happens to pure love when there’s rumors and lies and jealousy,” he said. “And all that’s timely for every generation.”
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