Columbia gets 'Lost In Austen'

Mendes to produce film adaptation of TV series

By TATIANA SIEGEL

Brit mini 'Lost in Austen' will be the basis for a bigscreen version at Col.

Columbia Pictures is bringing a time-traveling Jane Austen drama to the bigscreen, with Sam Mendes aboard as producer.

Based on the Brit miniseries "Lost in Austen," film will center on Amanda, an ardent Jane Austen fan, lives in present day New York with her boyfriend, until she finds she's swapped places with Austen's fictional creation Elizabeth Bennett.

The show's original writer, Guy Andrews, is penning the screenplay.

The original four-part series starred Jemima Rooper and Gemma Arterton and aired on ITV in the U.K. in September.

Mammoth Screen, which produced the mini, will develop the movie version with Mendes' Neal Street Prods.

Andrews is exec producing alongside Mammoth Screen's Damien Timmer and Michele Buck and Neal Street's Pippa Harris.

Mendes, who most recently produced and directed "Revolutionary Road," is working with the studio on the apocalyptic comicbook adaptation "Preacher," which he is attached to helm.