In 2019, Maggie O’Farrell’s agent sent emailed a group of producers and filmmakers to share a manuscript of the author’s upcoming book. “Hamnet,” as the novel was titled, centered around William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, following the couple as they grapple with the sudden death of their 11-year-old son. Liza Marshall, a U.K. based producer, read it in a single sitting.
“It was such an extraordinarily moving book,” Marshall says. “I had a profound reaction to it. There was an intimacy to it, and it was incredibly tragic, but also cinematic. Ultimately, it’s about the healing power of storytelling.”
Most of the people O’Farrell’s agent contacted passed on the project, but Marshall jumped at the chance to make her pitch. She connected with O’Farrell, who was at home in Edinburgh, over Zoom, and the two hit it off.
“She’s a very generous person who realized, as she puts it, that the book is her baby and the film is like her nephew,” Marshall says. “She always knew it would be a different thing, and it was never going to be a replica of the book. It was always an adaptation.”
So Marshall snapped up the rights before the novel hit shelves, which turned out to be a smart business decision. When “Hamnet” was published in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, its story of love and loss resonated with people whose lives had been upended. The film adaptation was soon set up at Steven Spielberg’s Amblin, which brought in Focus Features thanks to a production deal that the companies maintain. The partners then enlisted Chloé Zhao, the Oscar-winning director behind “Nomadland,” to find a way to make a domestic tragedy set in Elizabethan England compelling for modern audiences.
“We had confidence in Chloé,” says Kiska Higgs, Focus’ president of production and acquisitions. “She’s entrancing. And she’d gotten all this acclaim and attention for her work. She said that she was really interested in just making a film and creating a family and having an emotional transformation. That’s what she set out to do, and that’s what we’re drawn to.”
Zhao turned to O’Farrell to help her adapt the novel. The pair streamlined the storyline and made it unfold chronologically, a change from the book, which moves backwards and forwards in time. And certain characters, such as Agnes’ mother, were reduced so the story could focus more intently on how William Shakespeare and his wife process their trauma. Zhao also let her ensemble, which includes Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, shape their characters through dream workshops during which they analyzed their nocturnal imaginings.
“A lot of dialogue came out of that, and a lot of imagery came out of that,” Higgs says. “And then Chloe and Maggie would consult and return to the authenticity of the book and the historicity of it.”
When “Hamnet” opened last fall, it scored rave reviews. It also became one of the few indie productions to cross over to the mainstream. Filmed for $35 million, “Hamnet” has gone on to earn $70.6 million. It has performed particularly strongly internationally with $48.8 of its haul coming from foreign markets, outgrossing “The Favourite,” “Poor Things,” “Conclave” and “Belfast” at the same point in their life cycles. Marshall thinks that the story of one family’s grief resonates with audiences who are looking for a way to connect at a time when the world can feel polarized.
“It gives people a real reason to go to the cinema,” she says. “People are hearing about the emotional power of the film and wanting to experience that in a darkened room with strangers. I’ve seen the film as you can imagine, many, many, times, but when I sat in the audience at its premiere, I started crying all over again. There’s this kind of collective emotional outpouring that’s happening in cinemas. People want to do that communally. That’s why Shakespeare wrote his plays.”
The film’s success has also spurred interest in the novel. Sales of the book are up sevenfold and the novel climbed up the best-seller list in the U.K., cresting at number two.
“It’s really complementary,” says Higgs. “Seeing this story in a theater makes a lot of people want to return to the book or read it for the first time. It’s a virtuous cycle.”