Michael Fassbender’s “Macbeth” is Shakespeare Meets “Game of Thrones”

Technically, Macbeth is the original Game of Thrones, yet it’s not hard to look at this trailer for Justin Kurzel's adaptation of The Bard’s bloody 1606 tragedy and see the visual influence of HBO’s flagship sword-and-sex drama. 

In it, Michael Fassbender is looking athletically bloodthirsty as the titular warlord, while Marion Cotillard seems oddly light and soft as the usually stony Lady Macbeth. We’ll have to see where she goes with that one. Past the first credits, we’ve got all kinds of credible actors filling out roles— David Thewlis as the doomed king shows up along with Paddy Considine, Sean Harris, and rising ingenue Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby).

More than any of that, though, we were blown away by what looks like some serious action and a breath of scope not seen in a traditional movie adaptation of a Shakespeare play since Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet way back in 1996 (or perhaps even his 1989 Henry V). This marks Kurzel's first real bid as a mainstream, Oscar-material director, and a preview of sorts for his upcoming reteaming with Fassbender and Cotillard on the film version of the similarly bloody medieval videogame, Assassin's Creed.

Macbeth hits theaters December 1, just in time to fight for one or two of those little gold men.