Rebooting a classic work of literature for the big screen, by setting it in the present day and reworking its storyline for a modern audience, is currently a big trend in Hollywood. This month sees the release of The Avengers director Joss Whedons Much Ado About Nothing, set in modern day California. Later in the year viewers will be treated to Joseph Gordon-Levitts directorial debut, Don Jon, a Jersey Shore inspired version of the classic Don Juan story, co-starring Scarlett Johansson. Movie goers have already witnessed how successful modernised adaptations of classics can be: great examples include teen comedies Easy A (The Scarlet Letter) and 10 Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew). Meanwhile, TVs award-winning Sherlock rebooted Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian detective stories by setting them in present day London and incorporating modern day technology. Such successes have proved that classic literature can be wittily reworked for a modern audience. With that in mind, we highlight four literary classics we reckon would be perfect for the modernised movie treatment:
4. Doctor Faustus Christopher Marlowe
With a storyline which has been recycled in popular culture hundreds of times, surely its about time Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan play Doctor Faustus got a movie adaption of its own? The plot is timeless: ambitious Faustus sells his soul to a charismatic devil Mephostophilis in exchange for twenty-four years of pleasure. The catch? When those twenty-four years are over, Faustus will be damned to burn eternally in Hell. The success of The Globe Theatres 2011 production of the play (starring Doctor Whos Arthur Darvill) moved us to think Marlowes best known play was ripe for a modernised movie adaptation. Doctor Faustus should get the Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet treatment, allowing it to keep its evocative verse whilst giving it a visually exciting, present-day setting. The astute characterisation in Doctor Faustus is just one reason why it would work amazingly on the big screen. Devil Mephostophilis is at times likable, such as when he laments he is "tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss." During such moments the audience can't help but empathise with him, which, considering he's a Devil, clearly poses a moral dilemma. The number one reason why Doctor Faustus would make a fabulous modern film lies in the eponymous character himself. Marlowe wanted Faustus to be an Everyman: someone who could be any one of the audience. If the story was set in the twenty-first century, with a modern soundtrack and current actors, the audience would relate to Faustus more than ever, allowing for Marlowes themes to resonate all the more powerfully.