HAMNET Film Adaptation, Starring Paul Mescal, Sets 2025 Release

Focus Features has announced a limited Thanksgiving release on November 27th for Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet ahead of a wide release beginning on December 12th. The cast includes Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn.

From writer/director Zhao, Hamnet tells the powerful love story that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet. The film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 New York Times bestselling novel, which has sold 2 million copies in the UK and US and has been translated into 40 languages. O'Farrell worked with Zhao on the film's screenplay. The book has also been adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti, and recently played the West End in a production directed by Erica Whyman. Read a review of the production here.

In a previous interview with British Vogue, Mescal shared, "That book – it’s just devastating. I can’t wait. If I told a younger version of myself that this would be [shooting] this year, I wouldn’t believe it. I’ve obviously been in a film with Jessie before [Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter] but we’ve never shared the screen or a working process together. I think she’s one of our present-day greats. And Chloé is somebody I can’t wait to get in the weeds with, and get into the heads of those characters."

Warwickshire, 1582. Agnes Hathaway, a natural healer, meets the Latin tutor, William Shakespeare. Drawn together by powerful but hidden impulses, they create a life together and make a family. As William moves to London to discover his place in the world of theatre, Agnes stays at home to raise their three children but she is the constant presence and purpose of his life.

When the plague steals 11-year-old Hamnet from his loving parents, they must each confront their loss alone. And yet, out of the greatest suffering, something of extraordinary wonder is born.