Australian director David Michôd burst onto the worldwide filmmaking scene in 2010, with his critically-acclaimed crime drama “Animal Kingdom.” Since then, the filmmaker has released two films, “The Rover” and “War Machine.” Unfortunately, those two films failed to reach the heights of “Animal Kingdom,” even with casts that included Robert Pattinson and Brad Pitt. However, judging by the cast he’s put together for his newest Netflix film, Michôd seems poised to make some waves next year.
According to Netflix, Michôd has begun production on his film “The King,” which has already been announced as starring recent Academy Award-nominee Timothée Chalamet and Joel Edgerton. The latest report also says that joining Chalamet and Edgerton in the cast are “The Rover” alum Robert Pattinson, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily-Rose Depp, and Sean Harris.
“The King” is based on the classic Shakespeare works “Henry the IV” and “Henry V.” Chalamet will play the young disgraced Hal, who inherits the crown during a rocky time in English history and must learn how to be king with the help of Falstaff, played by Edgerton. The report states that Pattinson will play French prince The Dauphin, Mendelsohn will play King Henry IV, and Depp will play French Princess Catherine.
We’ve known about this project for a couple years already, with Edgerton, who co-wrote the script with Michôd, talking about their influences for the film. “We’ve written ‘Henry IV’ and ‘Henry V’ as a period film, but with our own dialogue. For lack of a better word, [it’s] ‘Game Of Thrones’ meets Shakespeare only in that, you can watch ‘Game Of Thrones’ and understand what’s going on,” Edgerton said in 2016. “I feel like, with complete deference to Shakespeare, there is something that happens when even the most intelligent people watch Shakespeare. They feel stupid, because he does the kind of roundabout version of telling you simple things. So, we just wanted to let the audience understand exactly what’s going on, and not just some people, but everybody.”
There’s no word on a release date, but with production starting now, “The King” is anticipated to hit Netflix in 2019.