Based on a play.

Moments later, Fillion followed up the link with the additional message: Oh its real.

Was it a passion project, or a marketable film?

A three-week party between friends, or something for a wider audience?

All of the above, as it turns out.

Young Hero is Leonartos daughter, and soon agrees to wed Claudio.

It sees two great talkers talk themselves into a facsimile of love.

It shows lovers being manipulated and tricked, their will bent on the whim of others.

Its an undoubtedly romantic story.

As Ian McCulloch might have it, its about the back of love.

Whedon actually makes Shakespeares storymoreromantic, by taking one or two liberties in his otherwise faithful adaptation.

The second is a scene of Claudio grieving for Hero, watched unbeknownst to him by the lady herself.

And, why does Hero accept Claudio after the way he treats her?

Whedons version is also sexier than Shakespeare wrote it, to us twenty-first century lot anyhow.

Can WhedonsMuch Adoreach as wide an audience as Luhrmanns kitsch masterpiece?

In all honesty, no, its a very different sort of film.

The productions intimacy lendsMuch Adoa wrap party feel.

Not that the film is sealed-off to outsiders either.

How could it be, when its jokes have been in the public domain for over five centuries.

One thing in particular though must have tipped the scale inMuch Ados favour: Whedons cast.

To sum up, if Whedon likes an actor, he uses them again.

So whenMuch Adobecame a real prospect, it was simply a case of assembling his Avengers.

Unsurprisingly, he sayeth yeth.

So with the cast Whedon wanted ready to roll (well almost.

Its a war of words, fought with battalions of puns.

Who better to deal in quips and wisecracks than the creator ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer?

Buffy and Spikes relationship is cut from the Beatrice and Benedick template in more ways than one.

Using the sixteenth century text does of course put the kibosh on Whedons trademark style.

Shakespeare didnt do press junkets.

Does that make the play feminist?

As ever,Whedonexplains it best: I think its often chauvinist, often feminist, often funny.

Its human; its Shakespeare, you know?

He has a very keen eye for who we are and hes a little bit merciless with it.

Thats where he gets his humour as well as his darkness.

Its got to breathe beyond those boundaries.