Movie fans who’ve been pining for a sequel for Ruben Fleischer’s 2009 zombie splatter romp, Zombieland, needn’t wait any further. As Borys Kit notes at The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog, production on Zombieland 2 is officially set to commence in January in time for a ceremonial October 2019 release from Sony Pictures.
The first film starred Jesse Eisenburg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in the respective roles of Columbus, Tallahassee, Witchita and Little Rock – four strangers who’d find themselves surviving together on the road amidst a zombie apocalypse. All four principle cast members are set to reprise their roles with original Zombieland scribes Paul Wernick and Rhett Resse (Deadpool, Deadpool 2) back to pen the script.
The new movie will once again put the focus on comic mayhem, taking the quartet from the White House to the American heartland as they face off against new kinds of zombies that have evolved since the first movie, as well as some new human survivors. But, most of all, according to the studio, they have to face the growing pains of their own snarky, makeshift family.
Budgeted at $24 million dollars, Zombieland became a critical, commercial and cult, grossing $102.3 million dollars globally with $75 million of the total earned domestically. Cries for a sequel were made before talk of a TV show continuation arose in 2012 which never came to pass while a pilot currently sits in existence at Sony.
“This is one of those projects that fans have wanted to see happen for a long time – and no one wanted to see it happen more than Emma, Woody, Jesse, and Abigail,” said Columbia Pictures president Sanford Panitch in a statement. “These are some of the most in-demand actors and I think they are making this movie because they love these characters. We are thrilled Ruben was willing to come back to direct the sequel, as his work on Venom has been truly amazing.”
Lauren Abrahams is overseeing Zombieland 2 for Sony. Fleischer is also at the helm for actor Tom Hardy’s stake in Marvel movie mania with Venom, opening on October 5.
Feel free to nut up and reacquaint yourselves with the trailer for the first film below, and comment and tell us if you’re ready to see our quartet of zombie killers once more!
