Box office Pride and Prejudice and Zombies grossed $10.9 million in North America and $5.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $16.4 million, against a budget of $28 million. It earned $300,000 from previews showing on Thursday night and $5.3 million in its opening weekend, finishing below expectations and 6th at the box office. In its third weekend it was pulled from 2,455 theaters (88%), the third biggest drop in history at the time.
Critical response The film received generally mixed reviews from critics, with criticism for the "inconsistent" tone, mediocre action sequences, and unsatisfying plot, though many praised the production values, performances, and humor. The
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 47% of critics had given the film a positive review based on 194 reviews, with an average rating of 5.41/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies manages to wring a few fun moments out of its premise, but never delivers the thoroughly kooky
mashup its title suggests." On
Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100 based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. Rafer Guzmán of
Newsday wrote positively about the film, giving the film three out of four stars, calling it "an unexpected and off-kilter treat, thanks to a BBC-quality cast and (un)deadpan humor".
Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, commenting that "PP&Z is rated PG-13, so the zombie gore is decidedly decorous. But before repetition dulls the party, the movie gets in a few juicy innings." Mick LaSalle of the
San Francisco Chronicle gave the film two out of four stars saying "Compared with other Jane Austen movies, it isn't much, but compared with other zombie apocalypse movies, it's an intelligent, literate effort." Jesse Hassenger of
The A.V. Club gave the film a C, commenting "That this particular retelling of the Jane Austen novel feels like a Cliffs Notes version is understandable; that its zombie bits are equally rudimentary, though, is more disappointing." Clark Collis of
Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B, saying "If more inventive than scary, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies breathes fresh life into the hugely popular, but now desperately predictable, undead genre."
Mark Kermode of
The Guardian gave the film two out of five stars, saying "Yet torn between Austen and the undead, Steers seems unsure how straight to play either element, blunting comedy, horror and romance alike. The result lacks bite—the one element that zombies and Austen should have in common."
Helen O'Hara of
The Daily Telegraph also gave two out of five stars, saying "If it had been more elegant in its storytelling, it could have been a fun genre crossover, but the best efforts of Steers and his cast can’t turn the overstuffed book into a film that makes any real sense." Manohla Dargis of
The New York Times gave the film a mixed review, saying "Both pride and prejudice still play their parts, but now in service to one tediously repeated joke: the sight of a gentleman or a lady, together or alone, playing cards or ballroom dancing, fatally swarmed by devouring zombies." Christy Lemire of
RogerEbert.com gave the film one and a half out of four stars, saying "Like the novel
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the movie
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is predicated on a simple, single gimmick: It’s
Pride and Prejudice … with zombies. This is a vaguely amusing idea which somehow got stretched out to an entire book, which somehow became a best seller, which inevitably means it had to be made into a film." Keith Uhlich of
The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a negative review, calling the film "Lumbering, lifeless and—strange thing to say about a cadaver—almost entirely charmless." Lindsey Bahr of the
Associated Press also gave a negative review, saying "This story might have been better suited to a television adaptation. The characters would have been allowed to breathe for a beat in that case. Here, the action and violence take up the space that would have generally been used for character development." Stephen Whitty of
New York Daily News gave the film two out of 5 stars, saying "The hungry monsters in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are looking for nice big brains. Well, they won't find any here." Stephanie Merry of
The Washington Post gave the film one and a half stars out of four, commenting ""Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" delivers what its title promises: a little romance and some undead villains, plus a bit of comedy. But this overly busy riff on Austen's winning formula doesn't justify all the tinkering." Britton Peele of
The Dallas Morning News gave the film a B−, calling the film "Fun, funny, gory and yet still strangely romantic." Literary scholar and Austen professor Devoney Looser stated in
Entertainment Weekly magazine her opinion that the film's first half, and especially Matt Smith's Mr. Collins, were comic, jarring, and enjoyable. She assessed the film overall with, "I laughed a lot and I shrieked. I was wavering between B+ and A−. I’m willing to bump it up for its originality and live with my grade-inflation reputation: A−."
Entertainment Weekly reporter and
horror fan Clark Collis did not rate the film quite as high: "I enjoy genre movies that attempt something different - and this does - but I didn't find it all that scary. I'd give it a 'B'". Rotten Tomatoes lists the film on its 100 Best Zombie Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer. ==References==