And Hamlet Balboa enters the ring, but King Claudius looks ready for a fight...

[felis_ultharus]

"Sylvester Stallone has stated, 'I could play Hamlet if I wanted to. I just don't want to.' Mr. Stallone may be understating his case. He may be able to play Lear."
--- John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion

Rarely do I have reason to question the words of the great John Ralston Saul. But could anyone actually imagine a version of King Lear starring Sylvester Stallone?

How about this: King Lear is driven into the woods by the abuse suffered at the hands of his daughter. He's driven into a mine, but the Duke of Cornwall flushes him out. So King Lear hijacks a horse-driven cart and steals an M60 rapid-fire assault crossbow. Then he invades Dover, and goes on a killing rampage.

It'd be followed by King Lear: First Blood Part II.

Comments

[azfactor.livejournal.com]

I'd rent it.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I probably would, too, but in the same way I can't help but look at the scene of a fatal car crash.

[pinkville.livejournal.com]

I could see him as Re[a]gan...:~)

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Ah, but who would play Reagan's evil sister, Gonorrhoea?

(I know the Elizabethan stage had men playing all women's roles, but I somehow couldn't quite see Stallone playing Regan. Maybe the nurse from Romeo and Juliet...?)

[pinkville.livejournal.com]

Gonorrhoea? Obviously, Schwarzenegger.

It's experimental theatre, so anything goes.

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

Actually it's a nice little paradox: Stallone is only qualified to play Lear or Hamlet because he's crazy enough to think he's qualified to play Lear or Hamlet. ^_^

Looking forward to First Blood II, suspect Cordelia will die and Lear will take bloody revenge, with a machine gun.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Nah, Cordelia offs it in the first. In the second, King Lear is sent into the jungles of Warwickshire, to rescue Prisoners of the Albany/Cornwall war that the government claims don't exist!