What's going on in the world of chick lit? The year of "change" will take on a different meaning soon when we see competing Jane Austen adaptations battle for the male demographic. Here's the secret to lure men into period costume dramas: throw a zombie or an alien in there. That's right—there are two films based on Austen's Pride and Prejudice currently in the works, both with the tales of Victorian courtship interrupted by either extraterrestrials or the undead. Groovy.
"...I might as well enquire why, with so evident a design of insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your better judgment."
"Listen, baby. We can pillow talk later. Now hand me that shovel."
Variety wrote today that Elton John's production company Rocket Pictures is starting production on Pride and Predator, in which an alien hunter—you know, like Predator, duh—crash lands in Hampshire, England and picks off Austen's characters one by one. Awesome title aside, would this premise offer more fun than Predator's bouts with soldiers, Governors and Xenomorphs? Surely the novelty would wear off as soon as Predator jams a blade into Mr. Darcy's gentlemanly "prides"?
Meanwhile, an upcoming book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is already in the middle of a heated bidding war after the cover went up online a couple of months ago, even though the book doesn't even hit shelves 'til April. The genius of this new take is that it's only 15% original. It's Jane Austen's original text, with "lost" chapters slipped in where zombies attack the compound. What we didn't know before: Elizabeth Bennett and her sisters are trained since childhood in Chinese kung fu, while Mr. Darcy is secretly a Ninja. This bastardization is possible because Austen's novels are in the public domain.
Author Seth Grahame-Smith told The Times:
“It quickly became obvious that Jane [Austen] had laid down the blueprint for a zombie novel,” said Grahame-Smith, a television comedy writer. “Why else in the original should a regiment arrive on Lizzie Bennet’s doorstep when they should have been off fighting Napoleon? It was to protect the family from an invasion of brain-eaters, obviously.”
To keep in the spirit of this novel-splicing business, I propose the movie adaptation do the same. Instead of starting an adaptation from scratch, why not just round up the cast from Joe Wright's adaptation to shoot extra scenes from this book, then edit it into the 2005 film? You have to be smart in this economy, you know.
So, when these two films eventually hit theaters in the same year, which one would you be more excited to catch? Zombies or aliens?
