Into the William

Courageous young actor Emile Hirsch (“Into the Wild”) will speak to a skull when he fronts director Catherine ‘Twilight’ Hardwicke’s version of “Hamlet”.

Sounding eerily similar to Michael Almereyda’s version of “Hamlet” released a few years back (with Ethan Hawke in the lead), the Ron Nyswaner (“Philadelphia,” “the Painted Veil”) penned film is set in contemporary America, and tells of a young man burdened with deciding whether to take revenge on his father’s killer.

“With its universal themes of death, revenge, love and even teen angst – the story of ‘Hamlet’ is perhaps as timely and influential today as it was when it was written over 400 years ago,” said Overture CEO Chris McGurk and chief operating officer Danny Rosett.

Of the more recent adaptations of “Hamlet”, I prefer Kenneth Branagh’s lengthy but satisfying take on the Bard.