Dakota Johnson Will Star in a Jane Austen Adaptation for Netflix

No persuasion necessary: We’re already on board with this movie. 

Variety just announced Dakota Johnson will lead an upcoming Jane Austen adaptation for Netflix, and at the risk of reviewing a movie that doesn’t exist yet, hell yes.

British theater director Carrie Cracknell will helm the picture, with Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow manning the screenplay, which is modern take on Jane Austen’s final completed novel (published after the author’s death), Persuasion. The article describes the story as that of “Anne Elliot, a headstrong woman living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy. Unmarried and 27 years old, Anne reconnects with a man she was once persuaded to reject and faces a second chance at love.” Okay, sign me the hell up.

In leading an updated Austen adaptation, Dakota Johnson is already in fine company. Let’s not forget that Bridget Jones’s Diary is a modern twist on Pride and Prejudice, and Clueless is based on Austen’s Emma.

In fact, this pairing could not make more sense. Austen had a cutting wit, and her novels poked fun at the social mores of her day, even if the broader public now sees her as representing unserious romance. Johnson, too, is sometimes dismissed for her involvement in the Fifty Shades series, but she’s not-so-secretly hilarious. Remember when she had the whole world thinking she loved limes, but it was a ruse? Refresh your memory with the video, below. (Her most shocking reveal: “I’m actually, I’m allergic to limes…. Limes make my tongue itch.” We were bamboozled!) 

Variety notes this is not the only Persuasion movie in the works. Succession’s Sarah Snook is set to star in another adaptation, though it seems that one will be set in Austen’s era, given that it’s from Searchlight, not Netflix. Austen fans, we are eating!