Julie Taymor to Adapt Transposed Heads and The Flying Dutchman for the Big Screen

Two-time Tony-winning director Julie Taymor is working on developing two new movies, according to The Daily Beast. The first is an adaptation of Thomas Mann's Transposed Heads, in addition to a modern update of Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman, called Riders of the Storm. 

Transposed Heads is a retelling of a legend involving two people who behead themselves, only to have their heads restored to the wrong bodies. Riders on the Storm sets The Flying Dutchman in the present day, turning the opera into a story about a man who cannot love without dying. He winds up falling for a woman who is tough, hard-headed, a great athlete, but emotionally not all there. Taymor has previously directed the opera for the stage. 

In 1998 Taymor became the first woman in history to win the award for Best Direction of a Musical for Lion King, and also earned the Tony for Best Costume Design for the musical. Her other Broadway credits include Juan Darien, The Green Bird and Spider-Man, Turn Off The Dark.