Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Creepiest. Thing. Ever... imho

As a general rule, I'm not much of a "girly-girl."

I don't really like chick flicks, clothes shopping bores me, pulp romance novels leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I actually don't mind playing airsoft in a swampy forest.

Even so, there are a few things "girly-girl" things that I get excited about.  Glitter, for instance, as well as puppies and unicorns.  But the biggest thing I get all "girly-girl" about are novels written by Jane Austen and the companion movie adaptions.

True, Austen's books are kind of old fashioned (being written in the early nineteenth century kinda does that), but they're so witty and deal with issues that we still face in our modern twenty-first century.  There are still social classes, there's still a desire for wealth and power, there are still conniving no-goods who will do anything to get their way, and there are still many people (both young and old) falling in love.  Language may always change, but social issues transcend time.

Now that Miss Austen's books are now public domain, the market's practically flooded with spin-offs of all of her books.  Modern retellings of Mansfield Park, murder mysteries, all sorts of interesting stuff.

And then along the way, a certain Seth Grahame-Smith decided to add zombies.

And that just made everything a whole lot weirder.

Even those of you who aren't fans of Jane Austen have probably heard of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, which is Grahame-Smith's take on two of Austen's classics.  What you might not have known was that the zombie rendition is so popular that it's being made into a movie.

Produced by an ensemble of production companies (1821 Pictures, Panorama Media, Handsomecharlie Films, and Darko Entertainment), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a weird twist on Austen's original work, the story of "A young woman [who] makes [a] quest for love and independence amid the outbreak of a deadly virus that turns the undead into vicious killers."  Read: "the classic 'Pride and Prejudice' story with zombies'" (Movie Insider).

Apparently its a horror romantic comedy, though I'm honestly not sure how the "comedy" aspect is gonna come in.  Last time I checked, watching a zombie chewing on some hapless guy's brain wasn't exactly "funny," but whatever.  I'm not getting on my soapbox at the moment.  =)

Anyway, the proposed film just got out of the Concept phase and (as of March 3rd) is now in the Development phase.  That means that casting, budgeting, and general crew hiring is already in the works.

So far, a director has not been attached to the project, though a lot were formerly going to be part of it: David O. Russel, Mike White, David Slade, David Katzenberg, even Grahame-Smith himself.

There isn't a cast, either, though Scarlett Johansson, Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper, and Natalie Portman were formerly rumored to be included.  An interesting side note is that even though she's not in the cast, Portman is still one of the film's producers.  That kinda makes me think that they'll reconsider her for a part, but it'll probably be a while before we know for sure.

Writing the script is the author himself along with David O. Russel (The Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter, I Heart Huckabees) and Marti Noxon (Fright Night, I Am Number Four).

An official release date has not been created yet, but those are usually nailed down during the Production phase and this particular film has a little ways to go until then.

So what do you guys think of this new Austen adaption?  Do you think it'll be Good, Bad, or Ugly?  And for those of you who have read the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, do you think you'll go see this movie when it releases?

Personally, I'm not going to see it.  Part of that reason is because I really don't like vampires, but the other is that I much prefer Austen's original work to anybody's spin-off (I'm kind of a traditionalist like that).  Still, I think it'll do well in theaters.  I mean, how many people went to see the movie adaption of Grahame-Smith's other novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer?

Yeah.  A lot.

But at this point, there's really no way to know how the populace will respond to it.  I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

 - Edessa, signing off