Macbeth (1948 Film) - Pre-production

Pre-production

In 1947, Orson Welles began promoting the notion of bringing a Shakespeare drama to the motion picture screen. He initially attempted to pique investors’ interest in an adaptation of Othello, but was unable to gather support for the project. Welles switched to pushing for a film adaptation of Macbeth, which he visualized in its violent setting as "a perfect cross between Wuthering Heights and Bride of Frankenstein."

Teaming with producer Charles K. Feldman, Welles successfully convinced Herbert Yates, the founder and president of Republic Pictures, of the prospect of creating a film version of Macbeth. Yates was attempting to raise the level of his studio, which produced Roy Rogers Westerns and low-budget features, into that of a prestige studio. Republic had already tried to present off-beat features, including Gustav Machaty's Jealousy (1945) and Ben Hecht's Specter of the Rose (1946), so having a creative artist of Welles’ stature was considered an artistic coup.

However, Yates was not able to provide Welles with a large budget. Welles promised to shoot Macbeth in three weeks on a budget of $700,000. When some members of the Republic board of directors expressed misgivings on the project, Welles offered to personally finance any part of the film that exceeded its original budget.

Welles had previously staged the so-called Voodoo Macbeth in 1936 in New York City with an all-black cast, and again in 1947 in Salt Lake City as part of the Utah Centennial Festival. He borrowed aspects from both productions for his film adaptation.

Macbeth marked the fourth time that a post-silent era Hollywood studio produced a film based on a Shakespeare play: United Artists had produced The Taming of the Shrew in 1929, Warner Brothers made A Midsummer's Night Dream in 1935, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced Romeo and Juliet in 1936. None of these films were commercially successful, but the commercial and critical prestige earned by Laurence Olivier's film version of Henry V (which was produced in Great Britain in 1944 but not seen in the U.S. until 1946) helped to propel Welles' Macbeth forward.