First Footage From Joss Whedon's Micro-Budget 'Much Ado About Nothing'

Joss Whedon isn't a guy who needs to define his career at this point; thanks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and other shows he is very well-established as a creator with a specific voice. That said, Whedon really seems to be coming into his own in 2012. The biggest project on his resume so far, The Avengers (a film that would be the biggest on the resume of anyone shy of James Cameron or Peter Jackson) is garnering rave reviews left and right.

Even as that movie was being finished, Whedon was also occupying the other end of the spectrum, with a micro-budget black and white film based on William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Shot in a couple weeks at Whedon's home, the Shakespeare film was announced last fall and features Nathan Fillion, Sean Maher, Alexis Denisof, Fran Kranz, Amy Acker, Riki Lindhome, and Clark Gregg, plus Spencer Treat Clark, Jillian Morgese, and more.

We've seen a couple photos from the small production, but now a news report on the current state of Whedon's career delivers the first footage from the film. Check that out below.

Six minutes or so into the embed below you'll find a couple of quick bits from Much Ado About Nothing. It's not a lot, but enough to see that Whedon preserved Shakespeare's dialogue. There isn't enough here to give us a real sense of how the film might play, but it is a good tease for the finished product, and a reminder of Whedon's general commitment to storytelling. Not many filmmakers would take a vacation from The Avengers by tackling Shakespeare.

[CBS, via The Playlist]