Robert Eggers will follow his upcoming werewolf film “Werwulf” with an adaptation of “Romeo & Juliet,” moving from medieval folklore to Shakespeare’s tragedy of two teenagers whose love collides with their families’ feud. Focus Features secured the project after a bidding war that also drew interest from Sony, Warner Bros. and A24, the studio behind Eggers’ earliest features.
Details on Eggers’ interpretation remain scarce, but the director is expected to lean into period-accurate dialogue, a signature of his filmmaking dating back to “The Witch” in 2015. His movies have consistently immersed audiences in historical settings rendered with dense, era-specific language, an approach that shaped “The Lighthouse,” “The Northman” and “Nosferatu.”
The choice of “Romeo & Juliet” extends a pattern already present in Eggers’ work. “The Northman,” his 2022 Viking epic, drew on the same Scandinavian legend of Amleth that inspired Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The playwright’s “Romeo & Juliet” traces its own roots to the Roman myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, giving Eggers another chance to circle back toward source material that predates the Bard himself.
Before turning to Verona, Eggers will release “Werwulf,” a 13th-century creature feature reuniting him with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe and Ralph Ineson, all veterans of his 2024 hit “Nosferatu.” Eggers has called the werewolf film the darkest script he has written, and Focus Features is targeting a Christmas Day release, mirroring the strategy that helped “Nosferatu” gross nearly $182 million worldwide against a $50 million budget.
Eggers wrote “Werwulf” with Sjón, his collaborator on “The Northman,” and the two are producing the film alongside Focus Features, with Chris and Eleanor Columbus serving as executive producers. Casting and other creative details for “Romeo & Juliet” have not yet been announced.
