Though it's only been a few months since The Avengers set the new high bar for summer blockbuster success, Joss Whedon is already on his way back, and with a brand-new feature film that he managed to shoot while editing The Avengers. It makes you wonder if the guy ought to take a proper vacation one of these days, but at least we all get the reap the reward of his workaholism, as he prepares to debut Much Ado About Nothing at the Toronto Film Festival, with a theatrical release hopefully to follow soon after.
Much Ado is, indeed, an adaptation of the Shakespeare play, shot on a micro-budget at Whedon's house, but as different as that sounds from the mega-spectacle of The Avengers, Whedon says it actually helped him finish the superhero epic. Here's how he explained it to Vulture:
I came off The Avengers and I was exhausted. We were already editing because our schedule on The Avengers was very accelerated, and I was having to cut out things and I was in that space where I'm like, "Ohhh, it's not really my movie anymore. It's not about anything!" [I was] sort of having the angst. And then I shot Much Ado and was able to come back to The Avengers and go, "Okay! Whoa, sorry guys. I'm back." I could see it clearly and go, "You know what? [The Avengers] is getting better, and here's what I need to take out." It just sort of gave me perspective, and not the perspective of, "Oh well, I got to make my passion project, so now I'll just churn this out," but the perspective where I could look at it the way I was supposed to because I felt like I'd been on a vacation for a month. At least, that was my idea of a vacation.
He goes on in the interview to talk about how going into production on Much Ado made him "smile so hard that my face broke," and how Nathan Fillion's performance as Dogberry "pretty much closes the book" on the character. Read the full interview over at Vulture, and stay tuned for our own take on Much Ado as Sean and I head up to the Toronto Film Festival this weekend!
