AW HELL YEAH, SON, LATTER DAY SAINTS BE MARCHIN! According to the Hollywood Reporter, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer is producing the directorial debut of Napoleon Dynamite co-writer Jerusha Hess, which begins shooting this week in the UK. The adaptation of a book by fellow Mormon Shannon Hale, Austenland is set to star Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords and Keri Russell. Hess, who co-wrote the screenplay with Hale, previously co-wrote Dynamite, Nacho Libre, and Gentleman Broncos with her husband, Jared, who graduated from BYU, as did both she and Stephenie Meyer. CLAW ‘EM, COUGARS! ROOT BEER KEGS FOR EVERYONE! Here’s the book description from Publisher’s Weekly:
In 32-year-old singleton Jane Hayes’s mind, no man in the world can measure up to Fitzwilliam Darcy—specifically the Fitzwilliam played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Jane is forced to confront her Austen obsession when her wealthy great-aunt Carolyn dies and leaves her an all-expenses-paid vacation to Pembrook Park, a British resort where guests live like the characters in Jane’s beloved Austen novels. Jane sees the trip as an opportunity for one last indulgence of her obsession before she puts it “all behind her—Austen, men, fantasies, period,” but the lines between reality and fiction become pleasantly blurred as Jane acclimates to the world of Spencer jackets and stringent etiquette rules, and finds herself torn between the Darcyesque Mr. Nobley and a forbidden tryst with Pembrook Park’s gardener.
A Colin Firth-themed rom-com set in the world of Jane Austen LARP? Damn, I’m staying out of the Magic Johnson theater that weekend, the brothers will be going nuts for this one.