Vincent Cassel to play Quasimodo in a Netflix Re-Telling….
Well, Well, Well, looks like Netflix is up to it again, they announced another Hunchback movie. For those of you who don’t know or don’t remember, this is the second time that Netflix has announced Hunchback adaptation, the first being in 2018 with Idris Elba as the lead with a modern setting.
This time we have Vincent Cassel taking the title role as Quasimodo. However instead of a by the book retelling according to Deadline they are doing a “retelling of the life of Quasimodo, the man said to have inspired Victor Hugo’s bell-ringer in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” and the log line is “Set in Paris on the eve of the July Revolution (1830), this film reimagines the life of the man said to have inspired Victor Hugo’s iconic character, Quasimodo. As the cholera epidemic spreads through the city, he’s caught between political turmoil and an impossible love.”
Back in 2010 it was reported that the inspiration for Quasimodo was a stone craver whose nickname was “le bossu.” So is Cassel going to play a dual role as the Quasimodo the bell-ringer of Hugo’s novel and the historical stone craver? We shall see.
A Pandemic?
Also another just nitpick is the presence of cholera. It’s true that cholera was pandemic of the time but they are rushing the timeline of it in Paris to coincide with Hugo working on the novel. It’s could be forgiven if there is a compelling reason. But what thematic basis is for the inclusion of a pandemic with the themes of novel? Again we shall see.
Is this Miscast?
Then there is Cassel himself. While he is a competent actor, it’s disappointing to see cast him as Quasimodo. He has the right look and presence to play Frollo. While I do concede that traditionally 58 isn’t exactly “too old” to play the role Quasimodo as Quasimodo’s actors average age is 43, with the inclusion Steve Lemme from “Quasi!” which I’m loathed to include in the data points and 41 without, Cassel is defiantly at the older range of the actors who have played the role.
Also I concede that it doesn’t really matter whether his looks matter since he will most likely be in prosthetics so it’s moot point. Still it’s a little disappointing of casting choice since Quasimodo is seldom ever played by a younger performer as in the book he is around 20 years old. And if you want to get even more exact, he’s most likely 19 years old. During his trial (Book Six, Chapter One) Quasimodo says that believes he will be 20 on Saint Martins’ Day which is November 11th and the events of novel are roughly between January to July of 1482. But that is a colossal nitpick.
Liberty on Liberties
So it looks this version is going to take a lot of liberties with the story both figuratively and historically in effort to differentiate itself from the other versions. Even though it’s following the trend of naming the movie after Quasimodo much like the two other odd takes that have come before it, 1999’s “Quasimodo d’El Paris” and 2023’s “Quasi!”
Since 2010 there have been eight Hunchback movie productions to get announced. Only one got made and released and that was only nominally a version and technically shouldn’t even count. This is the ninth Hunchback version to be announced so again we shall see if this THE version that gets released and is marginally good. So far my expectations are quite low. But on the plus side, Content!
Any thoughts or feeling on this news? Are you Happy with the casting of Vincent Cassel as Quasimodo?
