by FilmInk Staff
International production team assembles for Gen-Z Shakespeare feature relocating the romance to the aftermath of a modern military conflict
29-year-old British writer-director Lakeem Rose (main image) is set to make his feature debut with a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, developed with Canadian producers Plato Fountidakis and Paul Rapovski, both managing partners of Fast Motion Films and Clever Creature, alongside Hong Kong/British producer and director Mike Leeder of Red Packet Media.
The film relocates Shakespeare’s romantic comedy to the aftermath of a contemporary military conflict, following four soldiers who return to the home of an old family friend, where old rivalries, new romances and a dangerous deception begin to unfold.
Rose’s adaptation will retain Shakespeare’s original Early Modern English, presented with contemporary English subtitles, while rebuilding the world surrounding the text for a modern audience. The film will also incorporate silent-cinema-inspired visual sequences into its contemporary military setting, creating a visual language that bridges classical theatre and modern genre filmmaking.
“As always, we have to edit these texts to flow as a screenplay. I’ve been studying how filmmakers and performers like Kenneth Branagh and David Harewood bring this language to life,” said Rose. “The language has survived for four hundred years for a reason. Our experiment is to change the context around it and see what happens when these characters, relationships and ideas are placed in a world that feels immediate to people now.”
Fountidakis (left) will produce the film, with Fountidakis and Rapovski overseeing the project through Fast Motion Films, where both serve as managing partners. Their international sales and distribution interests are represented through Clever Creature.
Fountidakis and Rapovski bring decades of combined hands-on experience across genre film and television, with credits including Enhanced, Believer, Mutant X, Bullet Proof Monk, The Chronicles of Riddick, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Lost Girl. Their backgrounds in action performance, design and production will help shape the film’s contemporary military environment, locations and physical action.
“Independent cinema depends on backing new voices with bold tastes,” said Fountidakis. “This modern adaptation has the opportunity to introduce Shakespeare to audiences who might never otherwise engage with his work. Lakeem has a distinctive perspective on the material, and the combination of Shakespearean language, contemporary genre filmmaking and a post-conflict setting gives the project a very fresh identity.”
Hong Kong-based producer and casting director Mike Leeder joins the project through Red Packet Media. Based in Hong Kong since 1990, Leeder specialises in Asian and international genre cinema, with credits spanning Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Jet Li’s Fearless, Man of Tai Chi, the Ip Man franchise and The Raid films.
“What interests me is the collision of traditions,” said Leeder. “The language remains Shakespeare’s, but the world around it belongs to contemporary genre cinema. Setting Much Ado in the aftermath of such immediate conflict gives the romance, humour and deception a new tone, while the silent visual passages allow parts of the story to be told entirely through image. Plato’s genre experience and Lakeem’s background in theatre and music make this a genuinely unusual way into the material.”
Before moving into film, Rose studied English at the University of Oxford, where his theatre work included a production of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, overseen by Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate. Alongside narrative film, Rose works across music, visual media and documentary.
The development of Much Ado About Nothing is also being documented through Reinventing Shakespeare, an ongoing documentary series following Rose and his collaborators as they develop the film and explore what Shakespeare can mean to a new generation of audiences.
Rose and Fountidakis are set to attend the TIFF Market in Toronto for industry meetings surrounding the project.
Much Ado About Nothing is currently in development and targeting a 2027 release.
