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UPDATE: I've added to, retitled and bumped this story from a couple days back, as Deadline [1] reports that Emma Stone has turned down the offer to star in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. A shame, as she would have been great in the role, but hardly a surprise given that it wasn't so long ago that she made Zombieland. There may be other considerations that played into the decision, but the end result is all that matters at the moment. Original article follows after the jump.
A few different actresses have been possible leads for the film version of Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Predjudice and Zombies. Natalie Portman was an early candidate, and Mia Wasikowska and Anne Hathaway have also been linked to the project. But a series of directors have come and gone through a revolving door: David O. Russell, Mike White, and finally the choice that stuck [2], Craig Gillespie.
So, with a director in place and final script work [3] being done by Marti Noxon (who wrote Craig Gillespie's last film, the Fright Night remake) it's time to really lock down a young woman to play Jane Austen's heroine Elizabeth Bennet, who has to deal with zombies in addition to love and rigid social structures. Emma Stone has been offered the part, says THR [4], but we don't have further info. If she accepts the rest of the cast will be built around her.
Emma Stone is a great choice, I think. She's got the skills to sell the unusual material, and is clearly comfortable with doing serious work in the context of outlandish genre material. Hell, if anything, having Zombieland on her resume probably makes her almost too obvious a choice here. But if she takes the job she'll likely knock it out of the park.
Here’s a description of the material from Booklist via Amazon [5]:
This may be the most wacky by-product of the busy Jane Austen fan-fiction industry—at least among the spin-offs and pastiches that have made it into print. In what’s described as an “expanded edition” of Pride and Prejudice, 85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem.” For more than 50 years, we learn, England has been overrun by zombies, prompting people like the Bennets to send their daughters away to China for training in the art of deadly combat, and prompting others, like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to employ armies of ninjas. Added to the familiar plot turns that bring Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy together is the fact that both are highly skilled killers, gleefully slaying zombies on the way to their happy ending. Is nothing sacred?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/emma-stone-eyes-zombies-lead-204708
[1] http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/emma-stone-not-doing-pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies/
[2] http://www.slashfilm.com/craig-gillespie-is-the-new-director-for-pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies/
[3] http://www.slashfilm.com/screenwriting-bits-marti-noxon-rewriting-pride-prejudice-zombies-thor-scribes-writing-film-peyton-reed/
[4] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/emma-stone-eyes-zombies-lead-204708
[5] http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347
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