Riz Ahmed is going to be Hamlet. The "Nightcrawler" star will portray the prince of Denmark in a forthcoming adaption of "Hamlet" that will also star Morfydd Clark as Ophelia and "Conversations With Friends" star (and Taylor Swift's beau) Joe Alwyn as Laertes, Ophelia's brother.

A release date has not been set yet, but Aneil Karia has been confirmed as the director, and the script will be written by Michael Lesslie, who also wrote 2015's "Macbeth" and met Ahmed in university. Lesslie and Ahmed have been conceptualizing the project for at least 10 years, Ahmed told Deadline. It will follow the same plot as Shakespeare's classic tragedy, with Ahmed's Hamlet haunted by the ghost of his dead father, only it will be based in present-day London.

"This is a film about many of the pressing issues of our time," Ahmed said to Deadline. "It deals with race, greed, capitalism, corruption and privilege,...