For over 160 years, Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre has been one of the world’s most popular books. A mainstay of school reading lists, it has been translated into virtually every language. A story with a protagonist whom Brontë saw as “a heroine as plain and small as myself” it continues to inspire generations and to influence storytellers.

The power of the story and the popularity of the 1847 novel have led to a host of adaptations of the book; there have been 18 feature versions (dating back to 1910, and most recently in 1996), and 9 telefilm versions. The team behind what would become the 2011 version, Jane Eyre, was motivated to reach a world film going audience while also honouring the novel.

Producer Alison Owen, an Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winner, offers, “If you say to someone, ‘What’s the definitive film version of Jane Eyre?’ no one really has an answer. Having made a number of movies from or about women’s fiction, I wondered, ‘Why not?’”

“We’re a company that is rapidly building a healthy reputation for being able to successfully convert well-known written works into big- and small-screen entertainment. Taking on Brontë seemed like the natural next step up the literary ladder,” adds producer Paul Trijbits. “It’s a book we already knew had an enormous fan base, so the responsibility was also a major consideration. We wanted to move this interpretation forward into the 21st Century whilst maintaining the story’s haunting beauty.”

Owen and Trijbits’ Ruby Film & Television began work on the project, which they took to one of the U.K.’s most prolific film funding organizations, BBC Films, to begin the development process.

Owen adds, “It’s timely in that Charlotte Brontë, seen as ‘the darker sister’ when compared to Emily and Anne Brontë, is being rediscovered much like Jane Austen was nearly 20 years ago.

“As a producer, I make sure to have general meetings with my favorite writers all the time; right after I’d thought about Jane Eyre, I was meeting with Moira Buffini. I happened to mention it and it turned out to be one of Moira’s favorite books, if not her favorite.”

Buffini seized on the chance to adapt the book, and she and Owen quickly outlined their vision for a full-on big-screen approach to the story. They knew it had to differ from adaptations that had gone before. Buffini’s approach was to draw out the gothic elements of the story, and make them engines of the piece.