Next To No Ado About Something... Whedon's Shakespeare?
Monday, October 24, 2011 at 11:14AM I woke to some potentially thrilling news this morning. It seems that somewhere before during and/or after The Avengers production Joss Whedon brushed up on his Shakespeare. He's completed principle photography on a movie no one even knew was coming.
Here's the announcement in pictorial form.
I can't make out which actor that is in the photo given the black and white and the goggles and the snorkel but the cast is like manna from Whedonverse heaven.
From Buffy The Vampire Slayer / Angel : Tom Lenk, Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker and Riki Lindhome (well she was only in one episode of Buffy but still...); From Serenity / Firefly: Sean Maher and Captain Tight Pants himself Nathan Fillion (Love); From Dollhouse : Reed Diamond (YES!) and Ashley Johnson ; From The Avengers : Clark Gregg ; From The Cabin in the Woods : Fran Kranz ; And the newbies: Spencer Treat Clark (little Lucius from Gladiator all grown up), Brian McElhaney, Nick Kocher, Emma Bates, Romy Rosemont (from Glee), Paul M Meston, Joshua Zar and Jillian Morgese
"Hey nonny nonny"The ad rather cheekily ends with "based on a play" LOL. If it's the play than Joss has gone and made his own modern Shakespeare, following in the footsteps of... well everybody. But Kenneth Branagh in particular.
The last time Much Ado About Nothing hit the silver screen the year was 1993. The movie opened with a particularly ripe Emma Thompson eating grapes and dreamily reciting "hey nonny" before the film erupted into an uproarious everybody-get-naked! bathing credit sequence because Kenneth Branagh was directing on uppers. We're guessing. That movie is so fun. How will Joss's compare? Good luck to whoever has to follow in Emma's lighter than air but somehow still earthy footsteps (I'm guessing its Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof as Beatrice and Benedick given their placement on the advertisement). If you ask me Much Ado is Emma's second best big screen performance ever. Given the consistent quality of her work, you'll understand that that's extraordinarily high praise.
But what this really means is that 2012 is shaping up to be the year in which Joss Whedon basically takes over the entire world: The Avengers, which he wrote and directed, hopes to dominate the summer box office; the long delayed 3D horror flick Cabin in the Woods, which he wrote, will finally arrive; he's announced plans to return to the web with an (unrelated) followup to Dr. Horrible; and now this surprise film!
Sigh no more, lady! I've learned to live with the constant regurgitation of Shakespeare but I can't say I wouldn't be blissed out if artists everywhere decided as one great collective mass that they wanted to give the old Bard a rest for a decade whilst they investigated the collected works of Tennessee Williams or Anton Chekhov instead.
Reader Comments (13)
Much Ado is my favorite Shakespeare play, and I ADORE the Branagh film. Watching it makes me wish Ken and Em would get back together...at least on the big screen.
I need to read up on this some more, but since everything has been so hush-hush, there are not actual details yet to be unearthed. But many are postulating that this film IS the unrelated web-series followup to Dr. Horrible. I think if it was an actual film-film, it would've been much harder to keep it all under wraps.
I'm actually more interested in this than in THE AVENGERS :)
Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing is the sexiest woman alive.
Please tell me Emma is in something interesting soon! I miss her so...
I miss her too, Tom! I love her in this film SO much - but what do you consider her finest performance, Nat?
BTW - I'm surprised nobody thought to follow up with a film starring Denzel and Emma together, opposite one another. There was some crazy potential chemistry going on there - another missed opportunity.
Janice - Well, I'm guessing Howard's End.
But he says "big screen" so I wonder, do you (Nathaniel) like her perf in Wit more?
According to the press release, Nathan Fillion is Dogberry, Sean Maher is Don John and Reed Diamond is Don Pedro. They're calling it a 'feature film', so I don't think it's a web thing. They're saying it was filmed at the 'micro-studio' 'Bellwether,' which I have a feeling may just be a b.s. made up name for Joss's own house.
True, Chekhov would deserve to have his own Streetcar iconic and masterpiece status-wise. I'm not sure his plays would be fit into big Hollywood productions or they'd rather be quirky indies. Don't know which one is the most cinematic one, though.
As for Williams, I think Streetcar's shadow and also Cat's to lesser extent is too long.
Yeah, I've gotta call bullshit on that one Nathaniel. Firstly, as awesome as Chekhov and Tennessee WIlliams are, neither of them have as many jawdropping masterpieces.
Secondly, if there was a Streetcar Named Desire or Cat on the Hot Tin Roof three times in ten years, I suspect you'd complain loudly anyway.
Ah, I still remember when I saw Kenneth's movie in the cinema - the scene when the riders come galloping across the tuscany hills... I instantly felt in love with it. I have to watch it again.
And the prospect of a Whedon version with this cast makes me squeeak with excitement!
Just to clarify terms. When I said Chekhov needed his own Streetcar, I was referring to a movie adaptation as masterful as the play, not that Chekhow would've needed masterpieces in his resumé, it's full of them. He may not have the "jawdropping" thing in him, among other things because he was one of the masters of the "understated". His plays via Stanislavski (via the Method) gave birth to the "natural" style of acting which is still the one preferred nowadays, (if with variations) as opposed to the declamatory acting style that had been the fashionable style for centuries. So, yeah, "awesome" isn't even close to an accurate description of what Chekhov means to world theatre.
I'd love to see one of his plays directed by the Coens, I could totally see The Three Sisters in ... Minnesota.
Arkaan -- well sure. BUT i wouldn't complain if they varied it up a little. I mean "Cat" and "Streetcar" are hardly his only important works. My point is: i fail to see how there isn't great opportunities in contemporary artists revisiting old masterpieces by other playwrights.
I sometimes wonder how culturally literate todays artist are. The only writers before their time any of them seem to know about are Jane Austen and William Shakespeare.