The High Priestess'
Northanger Abbey Dream Cast

The saga (which is starting to read like something written by Mrs. Radcliffe) continues.

A book published by Cambridge University Press called Jane Austen On Screen claims that a film version of Northanger Abbey is in production by a British television production company for a 2004 release with a cast including Ioan Gruffudd as Henry Tilney, Anna Paquin as Catherine Morland, Sir Anthony Hopkins as General Tilney, and Kate Beckinsale as Eleanor Tilney. If you'll scroll down this page a bit, you'll recognize that cast list.

I was pretty sure that someone copied my "dream cast" (TRANSLATION FOR THE OVERLITERAL: I MADE IT UP!) or saw it discussed somewhere and took it for fact. Somehow it made it into this book as fact (and Cambridge University Press should be ashamed of itself--though of course Henry, being an Oxford man, would probably find it par for the course). I was still pretty sure it wasn't true; as of January 2004, Ioan Gruffudd had just wrapped filming on the Jerry Bruckheimer Hollywood production of KING ARTHUR (he plays Lancelot! *swooon*) and that he was in Los Angeles filming a TV show for American television called "Century City" (since cancelled). However, just to be on the safe side, I checked in with April, the webmistress of Ioan Gruffudd Online, the premier Ioan Gruffudd fansite on the Internet. She responded as follows, in an e-mail dated January 20, 2004:

I haven't heard anything about this film being connected with Ioan. Ioan had a radio interview last week in Wales, and there is no mention of it as an upcoming project. In fact, he's specifically asked if there is anything else besides Century City on the horizon and he says "No nothing. Just looking forward to the release of KA". So unless something has changed since then, it's all a rumor.

So, this is where things stand at the moment to the best of our knowledge: a film version of NA is indeed being planned by a British television production company, but Andrew Davies reported to Laura of the Northanger Abbey Movie Information Page that the producers are having a difficult time getting funding for the production, costume dramas being expensive to film.

Status, August 2004: Ioan Gruffudd will be in Vancouver for the next several months filming THE FANTASTIC FOUR, in which he is playing Reed Richards, a/k/a Mr. Fantastic. (Da Man, Mr. Fantastic, comme-ci, comme ça as the French say.)

Somewhere, Jane is having a right laugh over all this.

Laura of the Northanger Abbey Movie Information Page has a detailed rundown of the history of this production here with all the appropriate dates and links.

To recap: A few years ago, at the height of pop culture Austenmania, Andrew Davies wrote a screenplay adaptation of NA, which was going to be produced by the same group that brought Pride and Prejudice and Emma to the small screen. Miramax was also planning a big-screen version to star Rachael Leigh Cook. According to Mr. Davies, Miramax approached him, suggesting that they combine the productions and offering to purchase his script. Once they bought the script, they promptly buried it, and continued with their plans to make their own production.

When the film version of Mansfield Park directed by Patricia Rozema tanked at the box office, the marketing geniuses at Miramax decided that The Jane Austen Craze Must Be Over and shelved the idea of a film version of NA. The project wallowed in uncertainty and was the subject of much online whinging, including by y'r humble servant. Eventually Miramax hired Martin Amis to write a script (see the HP's rant analysis here (scroll down a bit to the entry headed "One really does not know what to think!"). One gets the impression that Miramax was humoring Mr. Amis; in the end, they chose not to go ahead with his script, and allowed Andrew Davies to buy back his script. It is scheduled to be produced by Granada Television in the UK. It should be a fairly good-quality production, which is a positive.

I have read the script written by Andrew Davies. It's not bad. It could be better. I suspect it will change somewhat in the finished product. It seemed to me that Davies repeated himself quite a bit from P&P (which he also did in the script of VANITY FAIR) and dwelt overmuch on prurient content that does not exist in the novel. The kids will love it, especially if the actor portraying Henry is a pretty boy. I suspect I will sigh and think, "Gee, this could have been so much better if....."

Amongst the rank-and-file Janeites, commentary about the upcoming production has been quite positive. They all innocently assume that P&P was so good, NA will be good as well. It will be better than the other movie, won't it? they say. But why is "better than NA1" good enough? Because this is Northanger Abbey, the red-haired stepchild of the Austen oeuvre? Who cares about NA? Only P&P really counts!

That is hardly a position we can support here at the Cult of Da Man. NOTHING is too good for our Henry!

Thus, the HP presents an open letter to whoever ends up bloody well producing this thing:

Please, my dear sirs and madam, pay attention to this "contentedly stupefied" and "pious" Janeite, who has probably studied the novel Northanger Abbey more closely and knows it more--to coin a phrase--intimately than you ever shall. I will even live up to your expectations for me and quote the Spice Girls: listen closely and I'll tell you what we want, what we really really want.

We want attention to detail, both historical and literary. Of course Jane Austen did not include minute descriptions of every house, outfit, and person. She wrote for a contemporary audience. They lived what she wrote, and needed no road map. However, two hundred years later, we may not need the detail, but we sure as heck want it. It gives a texture to a film that no amount of postmodernist literary criticism can bestow. We want the historically accurate and achingly beautiful costumes and sets of P&P2, S&S2, P2, Emma3, and yes, even NA1 (great costumes, rather odd script).

We don't want to be pandered to or patronized. We don't want a dumbed-down teenybopper movie designed to lure bored, illiterate suburban kids away from the Playstation and into the theatre. We don't want a film filled with careless anachronisms. We want a cast chosen for their talent, and because they are right for the role, not because they are the Hollywood flavor of the month. We certainly do not want "Scream" set in the 18th century. We weren't all that fond of it in the 20th and 21st centuries.

We want the wonderful story--rendered as closely to Jane Austen's version as filmmaking (not marketing) convention will allow. We do not want the application of pretentious literary hogwash to a funny, charming novel with wonderful characters. Let Jane be your guide. She knows best.

Listen to us. We are your audience. Ignore us at your peril.

The High Priestess has spoken.

The following are still the HP's dream team, but she despairs of ever seeing a production worthy of them and rather hopes that The Powers That Be do not actually take her suggestions seriously.

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