The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision is reporting that Idris Elba is set to play the hunchback of Notre Dame for a new movie, described as a “sonic and musical experience,” for Netflix.
The trade says that the film will be written by Michael Mitnick (The Current War) and is apparently a modern-day retelling of the Victor Hugo 1931 novel.
Here’s the classic’s synopsis:
Set in 1482, Victor Hugo’s powerful novel of ‘imagination, caprice and fantasy’ is a meditation on love, fate, architecture and politics, as well as a compelling recreation of the medieval world at the dawn of the modern age.
In a brilliant reworking of the tale of Beauty and the Beast, Hugo creates a host of unforgettable characters – amongst them, Quasimodo, the hunchback of the title, hopelessly in love with the gypsy girl Esmeralda, the satanic priest Claude Frollo, Clopin Trouillefou, king of the beggars, and Louis X1, King of France. Over the entire novel, both literally and symbolically, broods the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.
Vivid characters and memorable set-piece action scenes combine to bring the past to life in this story of love, lust, betrayal, doom and redemption.
Elba will also produce new music and indeed direct the film, following on from his feature debut with Yardie. The crime film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah earlier this year, and then in Berlin in February. It will feature prominently at next week’s Sundance London offshoot in the capital.
More on the new Netflix production as we get it.
