No one is safe from the zombie apocalypse, not even classical literature. As the zombie sub-genre grows in popularity it’s spreading from film to video games to comic books to novels, and the latest corpse this growing trend has dug up is Jane Austen. Back in April, Quirk Classics published Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which pitted Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters against the constant threat of the living dead.
It was not long before a film adaptation of the innovative story was in the works. Since then there have been a fair amount of rumors (some true, some not) concerning the project, but now we have a bundle of verified, bonafide news for all you zombie-crazed splatter fans. Not only is a film of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies green-lit at Lionsgate, it’s being given an extra boost by Natalie Portman who will produce and star in the film.
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet, one of five daughters in a middle class family in England around the turn of the 19th century, who must navigate love and manners in a society that doesn’t always share her values. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies follows the same plot with the same characters in the same time period, except that Elizabeth and her sisters are all highly trained martial artists who have sworn an oath to protect England from the constant onslaught of the flesh-eating undead. Also, there are ninjas.
Following the novel’s fantastic success, Quirk Classics gave a similar treatment to another of Austen’s novels resulting in Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Quirk has also recently announced a prequel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls.
The news that Natalie Portman is headlining the film should come as a shock to no one. It was only ever going to be her or Keira Knightly, and between the two of them, only Natalie has the chops to hoist this film out of schlock territory. That’s not to say that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies wouldn’t make a fantastic schlocky movie, but there is definitely potential for much more here.
Comments