Hallmark is bringing Ashley Williams and Niall Matter back together in Much About Love, a new movie that premieres Saturday, August 28 as part of the network’s Fall Into Love autumn series. Williams and Matter play Bea Bishop and Benny Gersten, and the film is being billed as a modern retelling of Much Ado About Nothing.
That pairing is the draw for viewers looking up Niall Matter now: the actor is returning to Hallmark in a project built around a familiar screen duo and a story with Shakespeare in its bones. Williams said she had been imagining Matter saying the lines for years, and that the pace of their dialogue clicked as soon as he started speaking them. She also said it is hard for her to find a costar who talks as fast as she does, but Matter does.
In the film, Bea is a television director with a theater background who attends a Shakespeare festival and runs into Benny, an old flame. Years ago, the two played Romeo and Juliet in a local Shakespeare production, which gives the movie its easy bridge between old romance and new sparks. Hallmark has not gone far beyond that setup in describing how closely Much About Love tracks Shakespeare’s original play, but the frame is clear enough: this is a contemporary love story built from the bones of Much Ado About Nothing.
The production also gives the movie a specific Ontario footprint. Much About Love was filmed in Ontario, Canada, from late April until mid-May, with much of the shoot taking place in southwestern Ontario near the city of London. The Elsie Perrin Williams Estate was used as the main offices for the Shakespeare festival, Chaucer’s Pub and Marienbad Restaurant became Ye Olde King’s Tavern, the Grosvenor Lodge turned into the Costume Shops, and the Covent Garden Market, Gibbons Park and Storybook Gardens were also used.
That setting matters because the movie is not just another Hallmark pairing. Williams also served as an executive producer, and she and Matter have already worked together on Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater. The new film adds to Hallmark’s autumn slate, with a premiere on Hallmark Channel at 8 p.m. Eastern on August 28 and a move to Hallmark+ beginning August 29. For viewers who know both actors from earlier Hallmark projects, Much About Love is the kind of reunion that gives the channel an easy sell: familiar names, a classic story and a release date that lands right in the middle of the season.
