Trailer
Plot summary
In Elizabethan London, soldiers seize Ben Jonson and take him to the Tower of London, where Robert Cecil questions him about writings by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Five years before, Edward lives away from court, disgraced, as Queen Elizabeth's reign nears its end. The queen has no husband and no heir, and the succession is in dispute: William Cecil, her chief adviser, and his son Robert manage the kingdom, while nobles gather behind Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, backs Essex, and Edward, his friend, urges caution. Watching a play move a crowd, Edward sees the stage as a weapon. He arranges Ben's release and asks him to stage a play Edward wrote, with Edward unnamed.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Anonymous (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust launched a programme on September 1, 2011 to debunk conspiracy theories about Shakespeare, mounting an internet video in which 60 scholars and writers each spend a minute replying to doubts about his identity, and promoted a protest in Warwickshire that temporarily covered or crossed out his name and image on pub and road signs.
- Anonymous was the first motion picture shot with the Arri Alexa camera, and Elizabethan London was recreated with more than 70 painstakingly hand-built sets at Germany's Studio Babelsberg, including a full-scale replica of London's Rose theater.
SPOILER
Marlowe is portrayed alive in 1598 when in fact he died in 1593, and the film has his throat slashed in Southwark with Shakespeare as his suggested murderer, whereas Marlowe was killed by Ingram Frizer with a knife stab above the left eye, in Deptford.- Emmerich said in October 2009 that he had had the project for eight years and that "it's very hard to get a movie like this made"; he later said the success of his more commercial films made this one possible and got him the cast he wanted without pressure for "at least two A-list American actors".
- Anonymous was a box office disaster, bringing in US $15.4 million against a budget of $30 million, roughly half of what the film had cost to make.
