Jane Austen Monster Mashup

"Turn it into a movie and we'll talk," I said two weeks ago about the forthcoming Jane Austen monster mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The studios were listening. The Sunday Times is reporting that Hollywood big wigs are bidding on the rights to the book and "co-author" Seth Grahame-Smith expects to sign a deal soon.

“It quickly became obvious that Jane [Austen] had laid down the blueprint for a zombie novel,” Grahame-Smith told The Times. “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.”

This, of course, is a terrible idea, which is why it will most likely be made. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains,” opens the book, a truism equally applicable to Hollywood executives. Just because everyome on the web is excited about an idea (this author included) doesn't mean anyone will buy it. Snakes On A Plane anyone?

But let's enjoy the insanity while we can. Here is an excerpt from Cinema Suicide, via Austenprose:

“Come, Darcy,” said Mr. Bingley, “I hate to see you standing by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”

“I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it.”

“I would not be as fastidious as you are for a kingdom! I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and several of them are uncommonly pretty.”

Before Mr. Darcy could respond, a chorus of screams filled the assembly hall, immediately joined by the shattering of window panes. Unmentionables scrambled in, their movements clumsy yet swift; their burial clothing in a range of untidiness.

Guests who had the misfortune of standing near the windows were seized and feasted on at once. Elizabeth watched Mrs. Long struggle to free herself as two female dreadfuls bit into her head, cracking her skull like a walnut, and sending a shower of dark blood spouting as high as the chandeliers.

I imagine it will look a lot like the fine piece of photoshop work above. Billy Connelly makes such a fine zombie. Mmmm, Keira Knightley's brains.

According the The Times, more monster-lit titles are on the way, including a "version of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, where Catherine, the deceased heroine, returns as a Japanese-style ghost not only to haunt but also to terrorize Heathcliff.

In a reworking of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester has something more terrible than an insane spouse in his attic, and a version of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss is powered by human sacrifice."

Finally, some accessible literature! Now if someone could rework The Iliad and the Odyssey, I could go back and work on my masters.

Thanks to Kyle for letting me know the madness continues.