Shakespeare fans rejoice! Empire Online is reporting that Kenneth Branagh will once again bring the Bard to the box office! One can only hope their indications are better than the Lie Circumstantial. That said, any guesses yet which play it will be?

Despite the disaster that was a musical adaptation of Love’s Labour’s Lost, Branagh has proved himself the foremost Shakespearian film guru with the likes of Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Othello, and what is arguably the best film adaptation of Hamlet. He has now set his sites once again on lighter fare adapting and directing the comedy As You Like It.

Empire reports that Kevin Kline (whose previous screen Shakespeare credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Bryce Dallas Howard (of M. Nights’ The Village) will play leads, presumably the Duke and his daughter Rosalind respectively. Have no idea who the Duke and Rosalind are? For shame. Get thee to a library! As for Kline and Howard, both are accomplished stage actors. Their presence on the project instills much more confidence than Keanu Reeves and Alisha Silverstone did when they attempted cinematic Shakespeare for Branagh.

Also slated to star are Shakespeare vets Adrian Lester, Jimmy Yuill, and Brian Blessed. Empire hinted that Branagh may take the sly-witted comic relief role of Touchstone for himself! Civet is of a baser birth than tar, indeed!

The story will be set in the late 1800s and is set to begin in April.

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