Jane Eyre: A Lot Like Twilight, Says Michael Fassbender; Stephenie Meyer Agrees

http://www.reelz.com/movie-news/11767/jane-eyre-a-lot-like-twilight-says-michael-fassbender-stephenie-meyer-agrees/

Posted 09.13.11 by Mandy

Perhaps it's just a ploy to get hordes of British teenage girls to throng to Jane Eyre, but in a recent interview Michael Fassbender said that the adaptation of the Brontë classic is a lot like The Twilight Saga.

When Fassbender sat down with Handbag.com for last week's U.K. release of the Cary Funkunaga directed—Jane Eyre, he explained that the stories are similar in that "they have the same sort of structure." When the interviewer asked why ladies like brooding men and bad boys, the actor explained that both Jane Eyre and Twilight are about "a love that can never exist, women seem to go crazy for these sorts of things."

He's not the only one to see the similarities. Twilight author Stephenie Meyer also sees a connection between the Charlotte Brontë novel and her own series.

Meyer explains on her official website that the name Edward came from Fassbener's character, Mr. Rochester, as well as Jane Austen's Edward Ferrars from Sense and Sensibility. Meyer also sees a connection between her own work and another Brontë classic.

In Eclipse, Bella re-reads Wuthering Heights, which was written by Emily Brontë and edited by her sister and Jane Eyre author, Charlotte Brontë. Bella relates to Cathy's struggle to choose between two men who hate each other, though Edward and Jacob are both far better men than Heathcliff and Edgar were. Meyer uses other classics to mirror her characters' stories, including Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice. The author's love of the classics was one of the reasons she decided to produce the upcoming Austenland.

Though it was only released in U.K. theaters last week, Jane Eyre is already available on DVD and Blu-ray in the U.S. The next installment of The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn Part 1, hits theaters November 18.