Nicholas Hoult is on a real hot streak at the moment. He’s playing the young Beast in Mathew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class, won the coveted role of Jack the Giant Killer off the back of that (thanks to X-producer and Jack director Bryan Singer) and is also lined up for George Miller’s delayed Mad Max: Fury Road. And now he’s added another prime project, signing on to star in Summit’s Warm Bodies.
Jonathan Levine, who last tackled horror with All the Boys Love Mandy Lane and offbeat drama with The Wackness, is on board to direct the film, which he adapted from Isaac Marion’s forthcoming novel.
**Warm Bodies **follows a zombie known as R, who usually spends his days stumbling around the devastated Earth, groaning and looking for live human brains to snack upon. But when he ingests the cerebellum of Perry, he also takes in the man’s memories of his girlfriend, Julie, and starts to fall for her. He stops himself – and the rest of his undead fellows – from attacking her and slowly an Edward Scissorhands-style romance blossoms. There’s just one small problem: Julie’s father is the tough survivor general who will stop at nothing to wipe out the zombie hordes. But R’s relationship stirs real feeling in him for the first time, and his actions might just go on to change the world of the better.
Hoult will tackle the role later this year, once filming is complete on Jack and before (hopefully) heading to Australia for next year’s Max shoot.