Shakespeare in Love write something "a little more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night". Viola and Shakespeare say their goodbyes, and he vows to immortalise her, as he imagines the beginning of "Twelfth Night", in character as a castaway disguised as a man after a voyage to a strange land. The original idea for "Shakespeare in Love" was suggested to screenwriter Marc Norman in the late 1980s by his son Zachary. Norman wrote a draft screenplay which he presented to director Edward Zwick, which attracted Julia Roberts, who agreed to play Viola. However, Zwick disliked Norman's screenplay and hired the playwright Tom Stoppard
Shakespeare in Love the film's audience knows what will eventually happen to Shakespeare's reputation. Marlowe gives Shakespeare a plot for his next play, "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter" ("Romeo is Italian...always in and out of love...until he meets...Ethel. The daughter of his enemy! His best friend is killed in a duel by Ethel's brother or something. His name is Mercutio.") Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" is quoted repeatedly: "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/ And burned the topless towers of Ilium?" A reference is also made to Marlowe's final, unfinished play "The Massacre at Paris" in a scene wherein Marlowe (Rupert