Director Roland Emmerich is expecting protests outside his home when he releases his new movie Anonymous, as he fears Shakespeare purists will be outraged by his portrayal of the Bard as a fake.
The Independence Day moviemaker uses his new project to examine the conspiracy theory that Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him, and was instead merely the public face of an unknown author.
And even though he believes there could be some truth to the concept, Emmerich knows he's likely to attract criticism from scholars and fans of the playwright.
He tells Empire magazine, "I have serious doubts Shakespeare wrote his plays... I'm expecting to have people protesting outside my house. We knew there'd be so many attacks on the film, so we decided to make the film as authentic as possible."