The movie of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has a release date! And it is. . . (drum roll, please). . . February 19, 2016!
So stop me if I’m wrong, but aren’t midwinter release dates – post-Christmas quality-film pileup, post-Oscar marketing blitz, pre-summer popcorn-movie viewing – notoriously reserved for stinkers the studio expects will bomb?
Historically, this seems to be the case – at least, Wikipedia says so, and thus it must be true – but it’s worth noting that P&P&Z is getting an environs-of-Valentine’s-Day slot similar to the one that proved so lucrative this year for that other well-known literary adapation, Fifty Shades of Grey.
Perhaps someone out in Hollywood hopes a Jane Austen-themed movie, even one with as weak an Austen tie-in as this one, will prove the perfect just-after-Valentine’s-Day date, drawing the same heavily female audience that turned Fifty Shades into a phenomenon.
As blog readers know, I don't have high hopes for P&P&Z. But Fifty Shades proved there’s no contradiction between midwinter stinker and female-driven success.
2 comments
Apr 2 2015 08:03PM by A. Marie
You said in your Twitter link to this post that the date is "not one that suggests the studio smells a hit." Personally, I know what I'm smelling that rhymes with "hit," but I'm trying to remember that I'm a lady and a Janeite!
Apr 2 2015 08:24PM by Deborah Yaffe
LOL. I fear you're right. Just so long as all those disappointed viewers don't blame Our Jane for the likely debacle. . .