Much Ado About Nothing (film)

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Much Ado About Nothing
The movie poster for Much Ado About Nothing.
Directed by	Kenneth Branagh
Produced by	Kenneth Branagh Stephen Evans David Parfitt
Written by	William Shakespeare Kenneth Branagh
Starring	Kenneth Branagh Emma Thompson
Music by	Patrick Doyle
Distributed by	Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release date(s)	May 7, 1993
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Budget	$8,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Emma Thompson as Beatrice and Kenneth Branagh as Benedick

Much Ado About Nothing is a 1993 movie based on William Shakespeare's play, it was written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also plays Benedick. Young lovers Hero and Claudio are to be married in a week. To pass the time, they conspire with the prince Don Pedro to set a "lover's trap" for Benedick, an arrogant confirmed bachelor, and Hero's cousin Beatrice, his favorite sparring partner and former lover. Meanwhile, the evil Don John, Don Pedro's bastard brother, conspires to break up the wedding by fooling Claudio into believing Hero is disloyal. In the end, though, through the blundering detective work of constable Dogberry and a cunning ruse conspired by the friar, it all turns out to be "much ado about anything."

Although the play is set in Messina (in Sicily), this version was filmed (in 100-degree heat) in August and September 1992 in Tuscany, at the Villa Vignamaggio near Greve in the Chianti region.

Much Ado About Nothing was released in May 1993, eventually playing on 200 U.S. screens during its widest release. Though it was not universally acclaimed, it received generally enthusiastic notices from critics and earned $22 million at the U.S. box office and $36 million total worldwide. Although not coming close to the earnings mark set by Franco Zeffirelli's film of Romeo and Juliet, it was one of the more financially successful Shakespeare films ever released, and helped usher in a new era of big-screen Shakespeare adaptations throughout the 1990s.