While he was slaving away over the blockbuster team-up that was The Avengers, Joss Whedon decided to take a break and...make a film. As you do. This was Much Ado About Nothing, one of Shakespeare's most amusing comedies, which Whedon shot around his own house with a bunch of his mates. And The Film Stage has landed the first pictures from the film ahead of its Toronto Film Festival debut.

Now usually, we don't get that excited about films that someone shot in their back garden with a bunch of their mates. But when it's Whedon, and the aforementioned mates include his regulars - Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Amy Acker, Fran Kranz, Alexis Denisoff, Sean Maher and Tom Lenk - well, that's another matter.

The story, for those of you who weren't paying attention in English class and who have missed the Kenneth Branagh version (which is terrific, incidentally) concerns a house party and wedding whereat the lives of two couples intertwine. Young lovers Hero (Jillian Morgese) and Claudio (Fran Kranz) are about to get married, and mischieviously convince their warring friends Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedict (Alexis Denisoff) that they're secretly in love with one another. But Hero and Claudio are themselves ripped apart by a lie, and much complication and conflict ensues before everyone's love life is set back on the straight and narrow. Fillion and Lenk, meanwhile, play foolish local watchmen Dogberry and Verges.

There's no UK release date yet for Much Ado About Nothing, but hopefully it will turn up here not too long after its Toronto debut.