Spoiler Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to see the film, and still wish to go in knowing nothing, we recommend clicking away to another one of our wonderful articles.
Those of you who stayed through the end credits of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies know that the end of the narrative is hardly the end of the full story for Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. As we see in the mid-credits sequence, the zombie George Wickham (Jack Huston) actually managed to survive his duel with Darcy, and has assembled an army of the dead as well as the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse for revenge. Right now it’s a question mark as to whether or not we will ever see the end to this impressive charge, but director writer/director Burr Steers did recently reveal to me what he would love to do should he be given the opportunity to make Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 2.
I spoke with the filmmaker before the film’s opening during a Los Angeles press day for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and as our time was winding down I brought up the post-credits sequence and asked what his vision for a follow-up would be. Steers is certainly excited by the prospect – particularly because the movie would be able to drift away from the story established by Jane Austen – but if you think the vision is just about zombie uprisings, you’ve only thought up a fraction of the picture. Said Steers,
I have a whole idea for it, but I don’t know if it’s, we’ll see how this does. The thing about it is, you have these characters, and now you can take these characters and go off and do anything you want with them, and it’s kind of great… I was thinking more in sort of vague story lines, but escape from post-apocalyptic London, Wickham sort of ascending to a dark throne. And also, the other thing that’s really funny is you can bring in, and you have to limit yourself on this, but you can bring in any character that’s part of public domain, any character from the Bronte’s or you could have Heathcliff… It’s like Marvel, it’s all… You can have Jules Verne! You have some people coming over in balloons!
Interestingly, the original Pride and Prejudice actually got its own recent sequel in recent years, as author P.D. James published the novel Death Comes to Pemberley in 2011 – continuing the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy with a dash of murder mystery thrown in. As you probably figured out by now, this probably wouldn’t be much of a resource for Burr Steers in his pursuit of cracking Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 2.
Only time will tell if we will ever get a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 2, but for now you can see the first film in theaters now.
