Like that’s anything new!

Gurinder Chadha, director of BRIDE AND PREJUDICE, says that she set out to make a Bollywood film that was accessible to Western audiences, but ended up somewhere between Bollywood and Hollywood:

She initially wanted to make a more Bollywood-style film and make it accessible to Western audiences.

‘It was always my intention to make films that were not immediately aimed at people who were used to seeing Bollywood films,’ said the former BBC journalist.

But when she started to plan it, she realised she was moving towards a more Western style of film musicals.

She said: ‘It became clear to me it was based on all the films I had grown up with like Sound Of Music, The Wizard Of Oz and Fiddler On The Roof.’

With her Japanese-American husband and co-writer, Paul Mayeda Berger, they wrote the East-meets-West interpretation of the classic.

And don’t call B&P a failure relative to BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM:

‘Actually it (Bride And Prejudice) has done double the business of Bend It Like Beckham. It’s ludicrous to say it hasn’t worked.’

Student Direct Online, a student union site for the University of Manchester (U.K.), has a personal ad invoking Jane:

I SAW YOU in the manc arts department with a fur scarf. You have dark hair and were reading Jane Austen. Can I be your Mr. Darcy?

Aww. We are nothing if not romantic here at AustenBlog. If you’re the lucky Lizzy and you find your Darcy, let us know, will you?

Most excellent news for Book!Bridget fans: The pants-wettingly hilarious segment of the novel in which Bridget Jones interviews Colin Firth is not in the theatrical release of BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON, but it WILL be on the DVD!

Kidron on whether or not there were any talks of shooting the sequence from the book where Bridget Jones interviews Colin Firth:
It was always a concern for us from day one, as the fans were very interested in it. We got bombarded with e-mails from Bridget fans asking us what we were going to do about it? We considered having Colin appear in dual roles, but we decided that would be a bit too postmodern for the picture. However, one night I decided to shoot an off the cuff interview of Colin Firth by Renée in character. While it never really fit into the film, I did save the footage and it will be on the DVD with a load of other fun stuff.

A tidbit of news in the link about P&P3:

Fellner on how Pride and Prejudice is coming together:
Well for starters, a film version of Pride and Prejudice hasn’t been made since 1948. It seems sooner than that, but it hasn’t been. There have been the television miniseries, but as far as feature films go, it’s been a long time. We feel despite the affinity for the miniseries, our director (Joe Wright) has put a visual stamp on the film that will separate it from any other adaptation before it…it should be out in early spring.

Mark your calendars.