Another Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton biopic is on the way, even though Lindsay Lohan already did one

In the filmmaking equivalent of the way British spelling adds a superfluous “u” to perfectly fine words such as “honor,” the BBC has opted to honour the lives of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton with another biopic—this despite that fact that Lindsay Lohan already contributed the definitive performance as Elizabeth Taylor, a person who drank a lot and threw things. Titled Burton And Taylor as a pointedly more “refined” rejoinder to Lifetime’s Liz And Dick, the new film will star Dominic West (who’s having a very mixed day) as Burton and Helena Bonham Carter as the actress attempting to play Elizabeth Taylor, even though she doesn’t have an empathetic understanding of what it’s like to be unfairly hounded by the tabloids and also be a selfish, terrible person. There's also the question of whether Helena Bonham Carter ever even dressed up as Elizabeth Taylor for a photo shoot, the answer to which is "no."

Still, while it obviously can’t help but be second-rate, Burton And Taylor will sidestep at least some of those inevitable comparisons by focusing on the occasionally married stars’ 1983 reunion on a Broadway revival of Noel Coward’s Private Lives—a moment in the stars’ lives during which slightly fewer things were thrown. Otherwise, it would just be unfair.

 
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