Elisabeth (Shekhar Kapur)

[Cremildo]

"Shekhar Kapur, best known outside India for Elizabeth, his 1998 biopic about the 16th Century British queen, is readying a new Elisabeth film. Based on a musical about one of the most famous members of the Austrian royal family, the film is to be shot in German.

This one is based on the life and death of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and better known as Sissi. Kunze and Levay’s Elisabeth is a stage musical based on the Empress’ life that has been watched by more than 10 million people and which rates as the most successful German musical of all time. There have been 12 language adaptations of the stage show, with the most popular Asian adaptations being in Korean and Japanese. Kapur will direct the film adaptation of the musical in German.

Sissi, a 1955 Austrian film adaptation of the Elisabeth story, proved enormously popular when it aired on mainland Chinese television in the 1980s. That spurred a generation of Chinese tourists to visit Vienna. Starring the late Romy Schneider, it has also been a staple of French TV ever since." [Source]