Shannon Hale’s Austenland moves to the big screen

From THR – Shannon Hale’s laugh out loud love letter to the Austen obsessed, a novel known as Austenland, is heading for the big screen. Jershua Hess, one of the co-writers behind Napolean Dynamite, will make her directorial debut on the project, from a screenplay she co-write with Hale. And producing and financing the project is none other than Stephenie Meyer (yes, she of Twilight fame), via her Fickle Fish Films banner. Keri Russell, JJ Feild and Bret McKenzie are set to star, along with Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Seymour, Rupert Vansittart and James Callis.

If done right, this will be marvelous fun…

Book Jacket:

Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane’s fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.

Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen; or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It’s all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?