Denzel-Led “Othello” May Get A Film

A new stage adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Othello” has just hit Broadway, the production sporting Denzel Washington in the title role and Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago, and has already broken records.

The Kenny Leon-directed title quickly scored the highest weekly gross ever for a Broadway play, taking in $2.8 million across eight preview performances – beating the previous record held by “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” in 2023.

The new version, which co-stars Molly Osborne as Desdemona, is set in the near future but stills deals wih Iago manipulating Othello into thinking his wife, Desdemona, is having an affair. His actions lead to tragedy.

The play celebrated its official opening on Sunday with Leon telling THR that there have “absolutely” already been talks about a new film adaptation based on this version of the play with Denzel and hopefully Gyllenhaal as well: “I would hope so, absolutely, that’s what I would hope would happen.”

Leon adds that he doesn’t know what Othello would look as a film as it’s “two different art forms” and, for now, they’re concentrating on the stage version – “we’re trying to get this up first.”

Washington first played Othello at 22 years old while a student at Fordham University. Now he takes on the role again at 70, with the actor’s older age built into this take on the character and changing the nature of the adaptation slightly.

Former Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has been trying to get a film adaptation of the 2016 off-Broadway take of “Othello” made – that play starred David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig and scored stronger reviews than the new version.

Source: THR

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