Code Z : The Series – Official Teaser from Code Z : The Zombie Series on Vimeo.

If all of the film adaptations of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” have left your brain numb, this one may really kill you … in a good way.

Natalie Portman has signed on to produce and star in the movie version of the best-selling book “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” written by Seth Grahame-Smith and, uh, Jane Austen.

This expanded version of the Austen classic adds a twist on the well-known love story when the outbreak of a deadly virus begins to turn townsfolk into killers. Elizabeth Bennet struggles to balance her blossoming love for Mr. Darcy with her obligation to kick some zombie butt.

And who better to bring the right combination of elegance, wit, and edginess to the role of Elizabeth Bennet than Portman? She certainly has the chops to convince us to embrace this version of Elizabeth — a woman who at long last will have a proper outlet for her sense of purpose.

Sure, zombies may seem like a peculiar addition to the original text, but there is something about the outbreak of the undead in 19th-century England that somehow makes the story more accessible.

The idea that love can blossom in spite of treacherous, external forces is really a modern concept. Besides, who hasn’t had to slay a couple of zombies to land Mr. Right?

Written & Directed:

Brandon Hunt

Produced:

John Meredith

George Retelas

Director of Photography

Brandon Fraley

Starring:

Juan Riedinger as Corporal Darren Stark

Jim Accomando as Harris Stark

Wendy Wisely as Karen Stark

George Retelas as Tommy Stark

Edward Hightower as Captain Carter

Ken Fitzgerald as Private Miller

Clark asks out Lois and Zod creates zombies in the new episode of Smallville, airing Friday, October 9 on the CW Network. Also, the search for a new hero!
In “Rabid,” the title of the Smallville episode airing Friday, October 9, Clark finally asks out Lois:

“I was hoping that we could grab something to eat tonight. Not that I’m saying that we should go on a date.”

And, evil Kryptonian Zod releases a virus that will turn humans zombies. After Lois is infected, the only way Clark can save her is by giving her an antidote made from his own blood!

Also, according to Aceshowbiz.com, the CW is looking to add another hero to the cast of Smallville. Described as “the most handsome and sexy of ALL the D.C. superheroes,” the actor they are looking for is a male aged 37 to 48 year old who has a “fantastic physique.”

Filmmaker George Romero birthed the modern zombie, and now he’s finally ready to reveal all the secrets of the walking dead. In his first novel, Romero will explain the full capabilities of the undead and how the zombie plague began.

UK publisher Headline has signed Romero for a book delving into the mythology he helped create, simply titled The Living Dead. The book will explain what zombies can and cannot do, and will finally give us Romero’s take on the origin of zombies and how the world at large reacts.

Headline will publish The Living Dead in July 2010.

When Woody Harrelson escapes the living dead in “Zombieland,” a new movie opening this Friday, should he head for the hills or the mall? A recently published research paper suggests that he’s probably better off hiding in the mall to save his delicious brain.

The world is full of things that move in zombie-like fashion, such as particles flowing through a turbulent fluid or the unpredictable price changes of the stock market, so physicists seek insight into this behavior by creating so called “random walking” models.

Physicist Davide Cassi at the Università di Parma in Italy looked at how long an entity hiding in a complex structure could survive if being pursued by predatory random walkers. Cassi’s paper, recently published in the journal Physical Review E, is the first to describe a general principle of a prey’s likelihood to survive over time while hiding in an irregular structure.

Though the paper itself does not specifically refer to fleeing from zombies, it describes “the survival probability of immobile targets annihilated by random walkers.” The conclusions suggest that the people trapped in a mall in “Dawn of the Dead” may be better off than the folks stuck in a farmhouse in “Night of the Living Dead.”

Cassi found that the likelihood of survival when threatened by predatory random walkers is closely related to how complex the prey’s hideout is. The more twists and turns, the safer you’ll be. In structures that are highly complex and irregular, the chances of the predator coming into contact with its target shrinks down to almost zero.

Cassi formulates a model to describe the behavior of randomly moving particles as they travel through maze-like networks. He said that his work could apply to a wide variety of situations including the distribution of information through the internet and medicine spreading through the human body.”

There are a lot of applications of these results in a lot of fields of sciences,” Cassi said. “The most amazing field of applications of these results are in biology, biochemistry and other organisms

.

“So remember, when the zombies come, flee to the biggest shopping mall you can find and remember that, using zombie movies as a guide, the undead often win.