Canadian co-creators Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col have won the Telefilm Canada Pitch This! prize at the Toronto International Film Festival for their idea “Kill Shakespeare”.
It’s part of an annual contest in which film director-hopefuls have six minutes to pitch their movie idea to a panel of judges. This year there were six finalists (after hundreds of submissions), and “Kill Shakespeare” took the top $10,000 cash prize.
“We'd love to turn this into a ‘Lord of the Rings’-style thing," Del Col said in an interview with CBC News.
"With ‘Lord of the Rings,’ they really highlighted New Zealand. We'd love to do that for Canada. [Winning Pitch This!] might be the first step to making it a reality. [We want to] shine a spotlight on the characters and the stories and really highlight that Shakespeare was the greatest entertainer of all time."
Their movie idea involves a live-action adventure film inspired by Hamlet, Juliet, Othello and Richard III, who all inhabit the same world – it’s an exciting tale inspired by the author’s most memorable characters. Drawing inspiration by Quentin Tarantino’s own quirky movie “Kill Bill,” which became a cult classic, “Kill Shakespeare” has been in the works for over seven years.
The idea came to fruition through a comic book series, which became extremely popular, and the first five issues will be released next November. However, the duo had always planned on doing a movie next.
McCreery and Del Col will attend Comic-Con in both Halifax and New York to promote the multi-media project, and they’ve been invited to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair as well.
This is the 11th time TIFF has hosted the Pitch This! contest.
For more information on "Kill Shakespeare" comics, check out Crave's interview with the comic creators, reviews of issue one and two and a teaser trailer for the IDW series.
