You could be forgiven for thinking that the zombie movie bubble – so strong a few years back with the likes of Shaun of the Dead, Land of the Dead and, erm, Resident Evil 2 – had burst.
In reality, though, the genre is strong as ever, with George A. Romero’s Diary Of The Dead out next March, 50s-style comedy Fido also on the way, and of course the peerless IRA Zombies attracting interest from major, major names (the guy who ran craft services on that big movie from last year has read the script and loves it).
And now you can add Zombieland to that list, with Ruben Fleischer set to turn it into his directorial debut.
The title refers to an old funeral home that’s been turned into a morbid zombie theme park in a world overrun by the hungry critters. Zombieland focuses on the adventures of the most frightened guy on Earth (it says here) who leads a motley crew of survivors.
So Zombieland is very much a comedy, then. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick wrote the screenplay, which Columbia Pictures is fast-tracking for an April start in order to beat the mooted DGA and SAG strikes next summer. Of course, the question is, with the WGA currently on strike, who’s going to fine-tune the script?