Roland Emmerich to make 'Macbeth'

Visionary filmmaker Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) has signed up to create a silver screen version of the classic Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth.

Emmerich says that he is looking forward to starting the project after he completes his latest blockbuster 2012, a movie about the Mayan prophecy that soon the shit is really going to hit the fan - something that many film critics predict will happen to a much worse degree on November 13th 2009, the movie's release date. One critic, Jake Lyndall commented, "I obviously haven't seen it yet but I am so confident that it will be the worst piece of faeces this side of the apocalypse that I have bet Larry in the pub fifty quid, my wife, child and half of my right testicle that this will be the case."

Emmerich stated that his vision of Macbeth may be a little different to previous productions: "The plot will obviously remain true to the genius of Shakespeare. However, in previous envisions of the play, Macbeth's world falls apart subjectively, too him alone, on a mental level. I thought we could extrapolate that to a literal sense so the audience witnesses his tragic downfall against a backdrop of earthquakes, tsunamis and basically poorly rendered CGI shit flying about.

"It will be something new," he added, "an area of storytelling I don't think I've ventured into before."

Others are not so happy at the news. Sir Christopher Bland, the head of the Royal Shakespeare Company has already sworn that if the film gets the green light he will strangle Emmerich with the first edition film print of Independence Day, before blowing his brains out whilst everyone involved in the project is forced to watch. Bland commented: "As soon as I heard about it I rang [Emmerich] up to see how he was approaching the film. Three minutes in he told me that King Duncan will be a computer generated alien and before Macbeth kills him he says 'Now let's see how well yo dead green ass can rule Scotland!' I've since been arrested by the CIA because I mentioned thirty-six of the thirty-nine key 'terrorist words' in the following two minutes of the phone conversation."

When questioned, Emmerich assured Shakespeare fans to remain calm because his Macbeth will also be released in 3D, "So everything is just fine."