Huge cast for Julie Taymor's THE TEMPEST!

Julie Taymor is tackling Shakespeare again. Almost ten years since she adapted William Shakespeare's play "Titus Andronicus" into the over the top and completely weird 1999 movie TITUS with Anthony Hopkins and she is readying her second adaptation of the legendary playwright's works. Taymor has written and will direct an adaptation of THE TEMPEST, Shakespeare's comedy/romance (though it's futile pigeon holing Shakespeare into genre) which is generally believed to be the last playwright Shakespeare single-handedly wrote. Helen Mirren will lead. WTF, I hear you literature fans say.. THE TEMPEST revolves around Prospero, a male character who is an exiled scorcerer and former Duke! Well, this adaptation is going to be different... Prospero, now named Prospera, will be a woman and presumably a Duchess. The Hollywood Reporter say the movie will follow Prospera and her daughter (Felicity Jones) and a shipwrecked crew of Prospera's enemies. The other inhabitants of the Island include Djimon Hounsou as the deformed slave Caliban and Ben Wishaw as the airy spirit Ariel. Russell Brand (in a Shakespeare movie?!?) plays the jester Trinculo, Jeremy Irons is the King of Naples, Alfred Molina is the drunken butler Stephano. Geoffrey Rush is in finalk talks to play Gonzalo, a royal adviser and old ally of Prospera. There is of course more to the plot than I've outlined above but I've never read this Shakespeare. The movie will begin shooting next month in Hawaii. Taymor last directed ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, an angst teen/romance musical set to a 60's Beatles soundtrack during the outbreak of the Vietnam war.