My these zombies are a popular lot aren’t they?
They may not be able to fashion together an articulate sentence (or even, it has to be said, a coherent set of gurgles and groans), possess only the most rudimentary of (non) existent personal hygiene and practice the most limited of diets (The Raw Human Diet which trumps the Paleo for its simplicity any day).
And yet we flock to watch them cavorting across the big and small screens with the sort of mania we wouldn’t show them if they showed up announced at a dinner party. (There would, I think, be a lot more screaming and yelling and a lot less fascinated watching).)
So it makes sense that Amazon , looking to vault its streaming service into the same league as Netflix and Hulu, would consider making a zombie-based series its first original scripted-drama offering.
And even greater sense if said zombie series was based on the cult hit Zombieland (2009) with its winning mix of horror and comedy, and a built-in rabidly-enthusiastic (pun most definitely made and not apologised for in the slightest) fan base.
Naturally, if you’re going to go to all this trouble, then you should hire the two guys who came up with the idea in the first place, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick as the writers and executive producers, and thank your lucky stars that they always intended for their highly original take on surviving the zombie apocalypse to be a TV series.
So adapting the movie into half hour packets of humourous zombie apocalyptic goodness should be a walk in the undead-filled park.
Throw in the obligatory backing of Sony, who released the movie (after CBS passed on it as a TV series way back in the dim dark pre-The Walking Dead days of 2005) and the directing skills of Eli Craig (the man responsible for Tucker and Dale vs Evil) who will helm the first episode, following a trend that has seen major directors oversee the filming of the first episode – think Jon Favreau handling the inaugural episode of NBC’s smash hit Revolution – confirming once and for all that TV is no longer Hollywood’s poor, redneck cousin …
… and you have all the hallmarks of a hit-show-in-the-making which will be a complimentary show to AMC’s addictively-compelling but far more grim The Walking Dead.
Casting is already underway, according to Shock Till You Drop, with the roles of Columbus (previously played by Jesse Eisenberg in the movie) going to relatively unknown Tyler Ross (Nate and Margaret, Milkshake), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin in the movie) going to Izabella Vidovic, leaving the roles of Tallahassee (originally Woody Harrelson) and Wichita (Emma Stone) still to be filled.
While a release date hasn’t been announced, Amazon has made it clear that it will likely go to a full series pick up straight off the date – unusual in an industry where you film a pilot and if that pleases the powers-that-be, proceed to a full series then – all of which makes it highly likely that Zombieland, the TV series, will be streaming to a small screen near you sooner rather than later.
Of course this means that zombies, already the prima donnas of the horror world, will become almost impossible to live with (or be undead with, whatever the case may be, but I am willing to live with that if it means Zombieland the TV series becomes a reality.
Soon and very soon, my platonically undead-loving friends, soon and very soon.