My paper explores the challenges and opportunities of teaching two film adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing in my “Shakespeare on Screen” small-group seminar in 2023. After beginning the seminar with two film adaptations of Henry V and following these with two films of Romeo & Juliet, my final-year students moved on to lighter fare, exploring Kenneth Branagh’s sunshine-filled adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy (1993). The next week, the seminar focused on Josh Whedon’s black-and-white adaptation, which transposes Much Ado’s action from Sicily to the modern-day USA (2012). Whereas the class collectively enjoyed and praised Branagh’s film, Whedon’s was unanimously criticised. Using these Much Ado films as a case study, this paper considers how students practiced active literacy (Leitch) by engaging deeply with, and reflecting on their responses to, these adaptations. Most remarkably, far from being a problem or a barrier to inquiry – my initial fear – the students’ dislike of Whedon’s Much Ado turned out to be highly productive. By trying to understand where Whedon’s adaptation came from, who it was for, and crucially ‘why it didn’t work’ for them, the students were inspired to ask different questions and formulate new ideas on Shakespeare adaptations. Finally, this paper will consider how students exercised and enhanced their higher order thinking and skills (as specified in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning) – analyzing, evaluating, and creating – through discussion, pair tasks, and group tasks on adapting Much Ado.