At long last, a big-screen adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s gleefully silly Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a supernatural send-up of the Jane Austen classic, is happening. Today, Screen Gems announced that the Burr Steers-directed horror-comedy will hit screens on February 19th, 2016.
The pic will follow Victorian lady Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James, of Cinderella fame) and her sisters Lydia (Ellie Bamber), Mary (Millie Brady), Jane (Bella Heathcote) and Kitty (Suki Waterhouse), whose attempts to combat the everyday pressures of life in their class-conscious society are complicated by the presence of cranium-craving zombies.
Lena Headey, Charles Dance, Matt Smith, Douglas Booth, Jack Huston and Sam Riley make up the stacked supporting cast.
As it stands, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is only contending with thriller Shut In in its weekend, though it’s opening one week after heavy hitters Deadpool and Zoolander 2 (plus whatever Nicholas Sparks trifle 20th Century Fox manages to trot out). For a better idea of the kind of irreverent humor the adaptation will likely include, check out the synopsis for Grahame-Smith’s parody novel below.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield. Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.