The ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ director wants to make this gay Greek epic next. Will it happen?
Red, White & Royal Blue, you’d think Hollywood would be throwing money at playwright-turned-director Matthew López to bring another beloved queer book to life.But, sometimes it seems like Hollywood doesn’t want nice things!Even though López successfully made the jump from stage to screen (he previously wrote the Tony Award-winning play The Inheritance), turning Casey McQuiston’s 2019 best-selling romance into one of Amazon Prime Video’s most-watched hits—and a very likely Emmy nominee—it turns out he’s still having trouble getting a green light for his next dream adaptation.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.And the gag is: It’s not like he’s trying to make some out-there, esoteric, controversial passion project—he wants to make a TV series out of The Song Of Achilles, only one of the most popular novels of the past several years!In the latest print edition of Variety, the filmmaker revealed his initial ideas for a Red, White & Royal Blue follow-up that sounded appropriately epic.“I wanted to make it huge,” López shared of his plans for The Song Of Achilles. “I wanted to do a multi-season arc.” As he sees it, author Madeline Miller’s 2011 is far too sweeping to fit into a two-hour movie: “I was like, give me 40 hours of this.”The New York Times best-seller is set during the Greek Heroic Age, following the years-long romance of legendary figures Patroclus and Achilles as the Trojan War rages on.These guys served it ancient city style.Surely, many are already familiar with Achilles, the Greek figure who gave us the term “Achilles heel”—and more importantly was played by Brad Pitt in the 2004 epic, Troy, which inspired many a sexual awakening.