If True Grit actress Hailee Steinfeld’s career were a character in a Top Gun-style action movie, this would be the part where the young rookie has just returned from the biggest challenge of their abilities and now the gruff-yet-paternal older military type is telling them they can have any assignment they want. Steinfeld has seemingly been offered every script going for her age range, but finally appears to be in talks for one of them, Italian director Carlo Carlei’s new version of Romeo and Juliet.
It’s a surprise, since Steinfeld has been loosely linked with a variety of projects since the acclaim and Oscar nomination she received for her performance in Grit. Among the films competing for her attention have been a new take on Sleeping Beauty and an adaptation of Cat Patrick’s young adult novel Forgotten. Plus she made it into the final few as a likely Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, a role that Jennifer Lawrence eventually won.
The new Romeo has some appeal, since it boasts a script by Julian Fellowes and producing support from Gabriele Muccino.
Carlei plans to kick off shooting on the film in Italy within the next couple of months, but it’s not known if he’ll be putting a fresh spin on Shakespeare’s classic tale of tragic romance between members of warring families. He may need to, though – this will be approximately the 75,000th time the story has been brought to the screen…