Book-to-screen adaptations of literary classics are having their heyday, with new releases taking over screens in recent years, from Netflix’s Persuasion to Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein. With this new wave of adaptations, though, there is also significant pushback from those who take a firm stance that not everything needs to be remade and updated for modern film or TV. One of the most notable adaptations made of late, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, has received a lot of criticism for this very reason. Now, it seems, Netflix’s Pride & Prejudice is next up for discourse.
The debate around Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Pride & Prejudice — starring Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet and Jack Lowden as Mr. Darcy — really ramped up started Feb. 24, when Netflix released the first teaser trailer for the limited series, which is set to release in the fall of 2026. Unsurprisingly, some fans are expressing mixed emotions. In the comments under the trailer, people aren’t holding their opinions back. “After Wuthering Heights, here they come for another literature masterpiece,” one commenter (@tanishaa-sharmaa) wrote in response to the trailer on YouTube. Another (@danishson97) wrote, “Netflix, I will come for you if you mess this up like you did with Persuasion.”
But, IMO, a new adaptation of the classic novel isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, this could be the book-to-film adaptation that Gen Z actually needs. Maybe this one won’t have Matthew Macfadyen’s iconic hand flex (IYKYK), or the intense depth of characters in the 1995 series. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Getting a new adaptation of Pride & Prejudice is something every generation deserves to experience — a rite of passage that dates all the way back to the 1930s. Now, it’s Gen Z’s turn.Â
There are certainly elements that will make this series distinctly Gen Z. For example, the series is written for the screen by Dolly Alderton, author of viral BookTok memoir Everything I Know About Love, and is directed by Heartstopper’s Euros Lyn. In the wake of Wuthering Heights, it should come as no surprise people are worried this will be an overly Gen Z-ified version of Austen’s novel, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. According to a Netflix press release, Alderton and Lyn’s series stays close to the original text, bringing together existing fans with the novel, while also introducing a new generation to a literary classic.Â
“Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of it,” Alderton told Netflix’s media outlet, Tudum. “Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice is the blueprint for romantic comedy — it has been a joy to delve back into its pages to find both familiar and fresh ways of bringing this beloved book to life.”Â
So, yeah — this adaptation will be different from the ones that came before it, and there’s no way to tell whether that will be for the better or for the worse until it’s here. But regardless of how it turns out, it’ll become part of the Pride & Prejudice legacy. And whether it gives this generation a new Mr. Darcy to obsess over, inspires viewers to revisit their favorite adaptation from years past, or even encourages new fans to read the novel for the first time, it will have done what it was meant to do.