“It quickly became obvious that Jane [Austen] had laid down the blueprint for a zombie novel [with Pride and Prejudice],” said Grahame-Smith “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 is sheer brilliance. Grahame-Smith took a well-known novel about the romantic antics of several young ladies, the Bennet sisters, and tweaked it into a zombie story.
Grahame-Smith says that 85% of the story is Jane Austen – he just changed enough to make it a zombie story.
He was able to do it because Pride and Prejudice has entered public domain.
This thing has garnered national interest, and as I write – several movie studios are in a bidding war for the movie rights.
Leaving zombies aside for a moment (gasp!), I think this is something that we can expect to see a lot more of – reworkings of existing scripts and stories. And, if it means more people are reading, I welcome it with open arms.
Now, what public domain story can I rewrite…
