Ok, so, fine, somebody managed to make a list of Shakespeare adaptations I’ve never seen. We get back into the comfort zone with this list of Teen Shakespeare Adaptations, supposedly “ranked”, which really just means the arbitrary personal opinion of whoever made the list, based on which ones they’ve actually seen rather than just spotted a YouTube trailer.
All the standards are here – 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s The Man, Get Over It, etc… They include Romeo+Juliet which always makes me on my soapbox about, “What did you mean by adaptation? Because some of these are original text and some of them are just storyline similar.”
Who knew that Nicholas Cage’s 1983 “Valley Girl” was a Shakespeare adaptation? I remember staying up late to watch that one on Cinemax back when cable television was new. Now I may have to go back and watch it again since I never made the connection. The wikipedia page tells me there’s at least some similarly beyond the “star-crossed lovers” bit, as Cage’s “R”andy meets “Julie” when he crashes a party at her house. Does that mean that “T”ommy is supposed to be the Tybalt character? Because somebody may need to read the play again, as he’s Juliet’s cousin, not her boyfriend.
Oh, and I also recall there being a reasonable amount of gratuitous nudity, which I now realize must have been an homage to Zeffirelli’s 1968 version.