Sony is adapting Romeo and Juliet into a gritty, 300-style action flick

Some stories are timeless. Take Romeo and Juliet. It's been well over 400 years since Shakespeare wrote the definitive version of the tragic love story, but it still shows up in everything from straight-up adaptations to modernized riffs like West Side Story or High School Musical.

Perhaps it's no great surprise, then, that a Hollywood studio is about to deliver the grim, gritty Romeo and Juliet action movie absolutely no one has been asking for. Sony is in final negotiations to pick up the spec script for Verona, which reimagines Romeo and Juliet by setting it "an epic, 300-style world" — because if there's one complaint people had about 300, it was the lack of a tragic love story.

Anyone who can't wait for Verona to hit theaters can get their gritty, vaguely Shakespearean action fix by snapping up a battered VHS copy of Romeo Must Die at their local Blockbuster Video's liquidation sale.

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