Al Pacino follows Anthony Hopkins steps and plays KING LEAR

Anthony Hopkins will later this year film his part of KING LEAR for a big budget British production from John Michael Stern (SWING VOTE) and co-starring Keira Knightley, Gwyneth Paltrow, Naomi Watts and er, Russell Brand. Going head-to-head with that production according to Variety will be Al Pacino who will play the mad king in a different production which comes from writer/director Michael Radford whose Shakespeare adaptation of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE five years ago was the material that gave Pacino his best performance this decade. Two LEAR movies, probably due out in 2010. As always in this situation, it's usually the first one released which becomes the success because audiences don't like the idea for paying to see the same story twice. But I always find them fascinating to see the differences each production has, what decisions were made, how the performances differ etc. Producer Barry Navidi...

"Al has been offered this role many times over the years, but didn't feel ready," Navidi said. "He's ready now. The film will be true to its period, very similar to the classical look of 'Merchant of Venice.' Michael came up with the most brilliant adaptation and Al and I flipped for it."

For those who haven't seen it, MERCHANT OF VENICE was a top quality Shakespeare adaptation...

The movie will shoot in Europe later this year and it could well be Pacino's biggest test yet to see if he can convince us he makes a better LEAR than Sir. Anthony Hopkins.