News broke in May that Anthony Hopkins was heading an all-star adaptation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. But as I mentioned then, this is one of two Lear projects on the way -- the other being a theater version starring Ian McKellen. This was going to be shown in the UK, but according to CNN, it's also hitting stateside on PBS next season.

Here's the kicker -- McKellen stripped down to his birthday suit for the role. Considering the kerfuffle that followed one slipped Janet Jackson nipple, one would think that there'd be a nice blur applied to Sir Ian's bits. However, PBS president Paula Kerger says: "Let's talk about this in January. It's what I think about it and what the FCC will allow." And as for what she thinks: "It's powerful. His entire performance is quite powerful."

Powerful or not, I'm sure there would be quite an uproar if his nudity was shown on a public station, even if it fits with the King's decline into madness at the hands of his evil daughters. So, I doubt that we'll get an unedited version of the play, but maybe there will be an unrated DVD that can go head to head with Hopkins. And, would Anthony go that far for the role?

I'm still trying to decide who I like more as Lear. It's probably McKellen, but Hopkins did a great job in Titus, so anything is possible. Who do you prefer?

When it comes to Shakespeare's tragedies, King Lear never made the short list of personal favorites. Maybe it was Cordelia, one of the biggest doormats in dramatic history, or maybe a play about madness and aging isn't best served to high school students. But, as long as there are actors who want to sink their teeth into lines like, "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport", then the mad king will live on. The Guardian has now confirmed that Naomi Watts will be joining Keira Knightley and Gwyneth Paltrow as the 'daughters Lear' in the big-budgeted version of Shakespeare's classic play, also starring Anthony Hopkins.

The story of Lear centers on a mighty king dividing his estate among his three daughters: Cordelia (Knightley), Regan (Paltrow) and Goneril (Watts). When Cordeila is unable to blow enough smoke up the royal butt, she is disowned, and the lion's share of the throne goes to her sisters. But we all know about 'fatal flaws' in Shakespeare, and it turns out that Regan and Goneril are hardly the loving daughters they claimed to be.

The project was announced back in May at Cannes, with a projected budget of $35 million. Most of that is expected to go towards the epic battle sequences that occur when the kingdom descends into the family feud to end all feuds -- not to mention $35 million can buy an awful lot of tights.

King Lear is expected to start production early next year and should arrive in theaters in 2010.

William Shakespeare. He's the guy to go to for stories, either as old-English recreations or complete reimaginings. We've had a million tales of Romeo and Juliet and other classics like Macbeth, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. We've gotten a stunning look into pulpy Will with Julie Taymor's Titus. We're still not getting a big-screen Coriolanus (argh!), but we are getting more King Lear.

The Telegraph reports that a new $35 million feature adaptation of the famous play has been announced at Cannes. Anthony Hopkins (who happened to play Titus in Taymor's film) will play King Lear, Keira Knightley is set to play his youngest daughter, Cordelia, and Gwyneth Paltrow has been tipped to become Regan, the middle sister. (Goneril, the oldest, hasn't been cast yet.) Talk about a sweet Shakespeare cast! This will pit Hopkins against Ian McKellen's work in a Channel 4 adaptation of the play (one that has Sir Ian in the buff), but I imagine he'll hold his own quite nicely.

If you need a Lear refresher -- this is the tale about King Lear's decision to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters -- the size of each split determined by how wonderfully they praise their father. Cordelia refuses to continue the dishonest flattery, and gets disowned. Not surprisingly, her crappy sisters become cold to their supposedly cherished father, and Lear begins to see the error of his ways. The adaptation is said to feature "epic battle sequences" of the wars that follow.

I'm digging the cast so far, but who should play Goneril? Julianne Moore?

Here stands a rebuke to the idea that in the digitized world everything is available. Well, if you strain a bit you can get this notoriously out of print movie. The Brazilian version of the semi-legal Chimes at Midnight aka Falstaff aka Campanadas a Medianoche can be bought for a cool $40, and all you do is turn off the Portuguese subtitles. However, thanks to the poor sound of this masterpiece, English subtitles might be necessary. The entire film was post-synced: "not a word in direct sound," said the co-star Keith Baxter, who played Prince Hal. Led by the obtuse Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, critics of 1967 put their finger on this very obvious button. Few of them considered how few viewers come out of a movie saying, "Boy, the picture, the script and the acting sucked, but wasn't the sound great?"

Last Sunday, the local film archive showed Chimes at Midnight; me and 100 other people turned our back on a sunny afternoon, and treated ourselves to a rare 16mm screening of one of the most imaginative, stirring and beautifully composed Shakespeare films ever made. I mentioned it to Cinematical's Jeffrey Anderson and he pronounced Chimes at Midnight a better film than Citizen Kane. I don't have that kind of enthusiasm (Citizen Kane changes lives, and Chimes is a rougher sell). And still, everyone will tell you about Citizen Kane, whereas Chimes is not just a gem but a half-buried one.

I was already taken with the idea that Burt Reynolds was going to star in an upcoming theater film called A Bunch of Amateurs, which I told you about earlier this month. The film focuses on aging action star from Hollywood (Burt) who joins a Shakespearian theater company thinking that its the Royal Shakespeare Company. Instead, he's surprised to discover that it's a group of amateurs in Stratford St. John. Due to marketing and charity, he has to stick with it and be King Lear on the amateur stage.

Now the film has just gotten 100% irresistible. Variety reports that Charles Durning (who got a hugely-deserved lifetime achievement award from SAG recently) has joined the cast as "a sleazy Hollywood agent" who tricks Burt's character into the theatrical company. I wish he was going to be one of the players, so we'd get more screen time and Charles doing Shakespeare, but I'll take what I can get.

The character actor is a total scene stealer, as Jette Kernion blogged about back in 2006. He has been in a slew of great films, but to me, he'll always be the angelic Charlie from Two of a Kind. Yes, I realize I have weird tastes sometimes. So... What's your favorite Durning role?

"I promise to polish you off quicker than any barber in London," simpers Mr. Todd, as played by the obsequious Mr. Tod Slaughter. While we're waiting for the new Depp/Burton Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, we can scan over the ancient version, maybe while playing the Stephen Sondheim album in the background. The 1936 film has a reputation for creaking like a badly-greased windmill, while an eye-rolling British ham goes through his rounds. Expect to hear just that received idea in many a review of the upcoming Sweeney Todd. Such is the craft of what a friend refers to as "bullcrit" (n., the repeating of overheard ideas without personal experience).

In this space, writing about Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin, I was mentioning how much I was coming to enjoy really ripe theatrical acting. And then comes this brilliant New Yorker article by Claudia Roth Pierpont (only abstracted on their site, unfortunately). She discusses the different approaches to Shakepeare on film by Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles. Both were primarily theatrical actors, given to exotic makeup and putty noses. I'd never compare Olivier and Tod Slaughter, but to use the evolutionary parlance, they had a common ancestor: the flamboyant British stage actor Edmund Kean, whose bravura knife-waving performances of the Bard used to electrify audiences of the early 1800s. As the vengeful razor-man, Slaughter is actually better than you've heard. I was happy to read that then film-critic Graham Greene once praised Slaughter as "one of our finest living actors."

When you look at the resume of noted actor Ben Kingsley, you notice that for every good role he has done, there is something a little less "dignified" right beside it (even earning him a spot on Jeffrey's list of the Seven Most Overrated Actors). Luckily, it doesn't look like his latest role will fall into that latter category. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Kingsley has signed on to play William Shakespeare in the literary adaptation, Will. The film is based on the novel by Christopher Rush, and is a fictional account of the playwright on his deathbed as he prepares his final will and testament. The book was only just released, but managed to garner a six-figure deal between the publisher and SBK Pictures (Kingsley's own production company) for the film rights. The book is part biography and part fiction, and Kingsley was quoted as saying, "Christopher wrote the most amazing, literate and entertaining novel I've read in years, and I'm both honored and excited to be part of bringing 'Will' to life".

If you are not a fan of the bard, Kingsley still has his share of projects lined up for the coming year. He has just wrapped production on The Wackness with Mary Kate Olsen (which has the dubious distinction of featuring an on-screen kiss between the two). Then it's off to the Hitchcock-inspired mystery Number 13 with Ewan McGregor and Dan Fogler (Fanboys) as Alfred Hitchcock and The Love Guru with Mike Myers. Last but not least, it has been announced that Kingsley will be joining the the Coen's comedy caper Gambit, with Colin Firth. Will is expected to begin shooting in the UK sometime next year.

Most of us have been watching Dame Judi Dench as an older woman in so many movies that it's difficult to remember her younger years. Her early film work from the 1960s is generally unmemorable: small roles in British movies like The Third Secret and A Study in Terror. The earliest film I have seen her in is the 1968 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, a fascinatingly strange version of the play with a great cast: Ian Holm as Puck, Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren as Helena and Hermia, David Warner as Lysander, Ian Richardson as Oberon and Judi Dench as Titania. The film was directed by Peter Hall, who had directed the play earlier for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a still from that movie (which isn't available on DVD, either). However, I did find a photo from Hall's 1962 RSC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which also included Richardson as Oberon and Dench as Titania. She would have been about 28 years old. The RSC Pictures & Exhibitions site contains more photos of Dench in productions through the years. My little brother claims that these days, Dench gets an Oscar nomination for walking across the street, although I feel her performance in Mrs. Henderson Presents was one of the only reasons to watch the film. (The other reason was Bob Hoskins.) Perhaps these early photos of Dench will remind us of her amazing range in acting roles.