Lionsgate’s attempt to bring Seth Grahame-Smith’s horror comedy mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has suffered yet another setback as Craig Gillespie has become the latest director to have left the project.
Deadline is reporting that the amicable split came about over issues of casting.
I think what they mean specifically is that it has been nearly impossible for the project to find a lead actress to play Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet who finds herself battling zombies and for Mr. Darcy’s affections. Blake Lively was the most recent actress to turn down the part, following on the heels of Scarlett Johansson, Emma Stone, Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska, and Natalie Portman.
But finding a lead isn’t the only thing that the film project is having trouble doing. Gillespie is the third director to have been working on the film. Gillespie was brought in to replace writer/director David O Russell, who left the project back late last year.
While it seems rather dark at this moment for this project to ever get started, I don’t think we should give up hope just yet. I would imagine that if Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, an adaption of the novel also be Grahame-Smith, does well when it gets released next year, Lionsgate will redouble their efforts in an effort to cash in before any other studio can get their own variation on the idea started.
