Not only has Joss Whedon released the third-highest-grossing film of all time with The Avengers this year, taking a record 7.4m. in its three-day US box office opening weekend alone, the writer-director also found time towards the end of last year to secretly shoot a micro-budgeted adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, shot in his own home with some of his – and our – favourite people.

Whedon’s adaptation will be debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival early next month, and now four* wonderful new images from the black-and-white film have made their way online, including our first look at Nathan Fillion, as well as our first official look at Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof in black and white.

“Shakespeare’s classic comedy gets contemporary spin in Joss Whedon’s stylized adaptation. Shot in just twelve days using the original text, the story of sparring lovers Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof) offers a dark, sexy and occasionally absurd view of the intricate game that is love.”

Acker and Denisof head up the incredible cast, alongside Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, Ashley Johnson, Tom Lenk, Clark Gregg, and of course Fillion himself – essentially, a dream line-up for any Whedon fan.

Much Ado About Nothing will be debuting at Toronto next month, and we really hope that it will quickly secure distribution in the US and internationally, because this is a film I would absolutely love to see. It’s of course still early days yet, but I have a feeling this stands a very good chance of being a strong Oscar contender come the end of the year. As usual with these great new images, you can click to enlarge.

 

*Because I’ve also included the fully black and white version of the image of Kranz that we saw when Whedon officially announced the project last October.