This weekend’s solid opening for “Zombieland” means there could be sequels coming in the near future.
However, unlike some movies that are hits, the creators of “Zombieland” already have a plan for the sequels. That’s because they orginally pitched the movie to CBS as a television series.
Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick tell io9 that CBS was interested in the pitch but didn’t come through on ordering a pilot for the show. So they decided to turn the television series into a movie with a bunch of ready-to-go and planned out sequels should the film prove to be a success.
“Interestingly the last bit of the movie is essentially episode two of the TV show,” Wernick says.
“It underwent multiple devolopment experiences. We wrote it as a TV pilot and sold it to CBS, and they had a lot of notes, which we addressed,” adds Reese. “And then when they decided to not make the pilot we unaddressed a lot of them. We went back to what we had, because we liked it more. In most cases. In a few cases we kept what they added because they did have some good notes.”
“When we decided to expand into a feature we took what we thought supposed to be episode two and we plugged it in,” Reese continues. “And the big change that we made when it became a movie was that Ruben [Fleischer] our director wanted to set the third act at an amusement park. Originally it was set as a big huge fight at a gas station. But it’s awfully similar strangely.”
“Zombieland” is currently playing in theaters.
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