Actress Natalie Dormer (L) and actor Matt Smith speak onstage at the Screen Gems panel for 'Patient Zero' and 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' during Comic-Con International 2015 at the San Diego Convention Center on July 11, 2015 in San Diego, Californ (Photo : Getty Images/Kevin Winter)
Fans of Jane Austen may feel like another big screen adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" may be a flop, the film is breathing a new life into the novel through the use of a powerful plot shift - zombies.
"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith that reinvigorates Austen's story that brought the living to the Victorian era.
The movie is directed and screenplay co-written by Burr Steers and David O. Russell, and it features Lily James as the central character Elizabeth Bennet and Sam Riley playing Mr. Darcy. Other characters starring in the film include Lena Headey, Matt Smith, Jack Huston, Charles Dance, Douglas Booth, and Bell Heathcote as co-stars.
In the first promo, viewers are reintroduced to Austen's destiny of love and social status, set in early 19th century England. Her character Bennet struggles to deal with what is socially ill for a young woman in terms of morality, manners, and marriage.
The trailer sets off just the way fans anticipate - with Victorian clothing, the countryside and manor and renowned quotes about what a woman is supposed to do to succeed in a polite society.
James says as fans get a look at the zombies that are prowling in the manor, "But to survive in the world as we know it, she'll need other qualities."
The trailer then presents an assortment of zombie-killing action scenes that unveil just how strong these women really are.
Earlier this year through Slash Film, Grahame-Smith said, "You're not going to improve Jane Austen, especially to me, so my intention was to take all her characters and themes and turn them up to 11. Even in the original story, Elizabeth's a fighter and beyond her contemporaries in her ambitions and her ideas of women."
He added that the film will see Elizabeth being a "badass warrior" and "ninja."
Lionsgate has also revealed the first promo for the movie as seen below.
