I know there's a lot of good to be found in quirky literary revisits like Pride, Prejudice & Zombies or author Seth Grahame-Smith's newest, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. But when the trick is to take an author's familiar prose or a person's life story and throw in supernatural creatures, is it really going to translate that well to the screen? Twice?

Tim Burton is apparently counting on it. Not long after Natalie Portman optioned Pride, Prejudice & Zombies, Burton and Russian director Timur Bekmambetov have plans to produce Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was published yesterday (you can see a "trailer" for the book here). Apparently Lincoln's mother was killed by supernatural creatures when he was young, so his willingness to beat the South during the Civil War wasn't motivated by slavery or states' rights, but a desire to crush the vampires who lived there.

The Deadline Hollywood article also includes the detail that David O. Russell is looking to direct Pride, Prejudice & Zombies, which is news to me-- and surprising, given that his recent film Nailed still hasn't managed to see the light of day. With the Zombies movie, at least we have a classic TV movie version and feature version of the book to keep us satisfied. But there's still never been a truly great biopic of Abraham Lincoln, and as Steven Spielberg's pet Lincoln project gets continually delayed/put off, it's a little heartbreaking that the vampire version will get to the screen first.