Netflix has greenlit a feature retelling Quasimodo, the humpbacked man said to have inspired Victor Hugo’s French gothic novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The Shrouds and Irréversible star Vincent Cassel is set to play the lead, Deadline reports.
Jean-Francois Richet (Plane) is set to direct from a screenplay by Eric Besnard (Wrath of Man).
Quasimodo‘s logline reads, “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.”
Cassel, who will play the bell-ringer in the biopic, is also known for genre roles in Underwater, Black Swan, Sheitan, and more. Quasimodo also marks a reunion between Richet and Cassel; the pair previously worked together on crime thriller Mesrine.
Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame has been adapted a handful of times over the years, first in 1911 and perhaps most notably by Universal Studios in 1923. The tale of course also became a Walt Disney animated film in 1996. This also isn’t the first attempt Netflix has made in launching a new retelling of Hugo’s classic; Idris Elba was once attached to star in a more direct adaptation of the novel.
The film is being produced by Clément Miserez and Matthieu Warter at Radar Films, a Mediawan company.
Production is expected to begin on Quasimodo this summer in France. Stay tuned.
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