MANILA, Philippines - Romeo and Juliet was penned by William Shakespeare in the late 1500s. The tragic tale of two teenage lovers endures today with countless interpretations from Georg Benda’s operatic adaptation in the 1700s to the popular 1950s stage musical West Side Story to 1996’s MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet. In 2010, Twitter premiered Such Tweet Sorrow, an improvised tweeted version of the play presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Mudlark Production Company.
And now we have garden gnomes in Touchstone Pictures’ animated comedy Gnomeo & Juliet.
The filmmakers were instantly drawn to the irony of the film’s premise. Says producer David Furnish, “The concept of the film gave us the opportunity to take a classically well-known story and turn it on its head — reinvent it for a modern audience in a very funny way. The sheer fact that we have the high art of Shakespeare, the most revered playwright of all time, and the kitschy garden gnome gives us so many fantastic opportunities for comedy.”
Enter Kelly Asbury, a director whose comedic experience and artistic roots made him a natural fit for the project. Asbury’s directorial credits include the Oscar-nominated Shrek 2 (2004) and Spirit — Stallion of the Cimarron (2002). He also worked as an artist on such notable films as Shrek (2001), Toy Story (1995), Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Beauty and the Beast. The producers felt Asbury had a proven ability to showcase a comedic character’s emotional side.
But is it safe to transform one of Shakespeare’s most beloved tragedies into an animated comedy suitable for the whole family?
James McAvoy, who provides the voice of Gnomeo, considered the question. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Because it probably shouldn’t work,” says McAvoy. “But you know what? In most Shakespeare plays these days, the director goes out on a limb to set it in some new environment. We’re probably not that far away from seeing a version in the West End or on Broadway where the actors are garden gnomes anyway. This is just getting there ahead of time. We’re trailblazers here.”
“Why gnomes?” asks producer Baker Bloodworth. “Why not gnomes? This story is worth telling; it’s relevant. I think the artwork is joyous and vibrant and colorful and it has Elton John tying it all together.”
But what would Shakespeare think?
“He was a great storyteller,” says Bloodworth. “I expect he’d have good fun with this.”
Showing in theaters, Gnomeo & Juliet is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.