First there was “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” then came knock-offs, like “Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies” and soon “Pride, Prejudice and Zombies.“

High concept ideas, too be sure, but could they be perhaps too high-concept?

The performance of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” was weak, taking in over $90 million dollars on $69 million dollar budget, and I don’t expect any other films of this mash-up of various genres to do significantly better.

I suspect that this is/will be the case because most people have a somewhat weak grasp of history (besides an understanding of it in its broadest strokes, which is why the name ‘Abraham Lincoln’ resonates).  This means that films based primarily upon historical figures will not resonate in the American box office, which is probably one of the reasons that “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” earned only $37 million domestically.

Though what is more interesting is that foreign receipts were significantly higher, at $53 million.

I expect that “Pride, Prejudice and Zombies” to suffer the same fate because for such a conceit to work enough people would have to have read the Jane Austen novel that the film is based upon or at least be familiar enough for the title to resonate with viewers (though to be fair, I tend to be an avid reader, though Romantic novels were never my favorites).