Many of you have probably already watched the premiere of Zombieland: The Series on Amazon instant video since it’s free for one month. If you haven’t yet had the chance you better get to it before time runs out and besides, the more people that tune in to the show, the better chance that it will have to make it to series.
I recently was invited to attend a Q & A session conference call with the co-creators and executive producers of Zombieland: The Series, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick as they talk the origins of the series, where they plan on taking the series in the future, and also answer questions from myself and other media journalists.
I’m going to give you guys the important points of what was discussed during the Q & A, read on for more details.
Proving that the family that slays together stays together the fearless foursome of Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita and Little Rock search for a place to call home and of course eliminate zombies along the way.
Based on the 2009 cult classic film Zombieland the pilot is now available for viewing on Amazon Instant Video. As you probably already know Amazon has released the pilot alongside their other projects and using customer feedback, viewership numbers and other factors Amazon will decide which titles will be picked up to series.
Moderator: Without further ado I’d like to introduce you to co-creators and executive producers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It’s kind of widely known that Zombieland started as a television pilot. Why don’t you give us a little bit of the history of how it began and how it has evolved to where it is now on Amazon?
Rhett Reese: Well we always intended Zombieland to be a television series. And we originally sold a pilot script to CBS back in 2005. They decided not to make it which was a blessing in disguise because that pilot script we ultimately expanded into the move Zombieland.
When Zombieland came out and succeeded as it did there was a lot of talk of a Zombieland 2, a sequel. And we tried very, very hard to make that happen. Unfortunately the movie gods didn’t smile on us. We had a few key departures and any number of factors that played into Zombieland 2 not happening.
And at that moment we decided well why not go back to our original passion and our original vision which was to make Zombieland into a TV series. And we found a partner in Amazon to do that. And now we’ve brought out the pilot.
So that’s a little bit of a rough chronology of how it’s all come down.
On how has Amazon been as a partner?
Paul Wernick: Amazon’s been just amazing. You know, they – we really feel they’re trailblazing here on the content front, putting their pilots up online and letting the viewers decide.
Zombieland is a nontraditional, show. Amazon is a nontraditional network and content provider. And we’ve really had the creative freedom to do what we want, how we want to tell the stories we want to tell.
And they’ve given us incredible resources, dollar for dollar, minute for minute. It’s really on par with – budget-wise with the feature. The feature was shot for $22 million over the course of an hour and a half. Dollar for dollar and minute for minute we’re really on par with that, going to series or at least the pilot episode on Amazon.
And it’s just been great. I think the viewer response people are clicking on Zombieland and watching it and loving it. And it’s been really fun to watch.
So it’s the ultimate focus group, It’s the ultimate focus test. You put it out there for, all of the public to watch and they get to, decide whether, we move forward or not, so.
On Why bring back the same characters from the movie instead of recasting or coming up with a new batch of characters within the same Zombieland?
Rhett Reese: Yes that’s a very good question. I think the biggest reason we brought back these specific characters is to us Zombieland really is these characters. You know, if – without Tallahassee, Wichita, Little Rock and Columbus I think Zombieland really wouldn’t be much more than a title and a tone. We always loved these characters. They were the reason we wrote the movie in the first place. It’s about a dysfunctional family. It’s about a fearless guy paired with a fearful guy. It’s about two really live-by-their-wits con artist sisters. And at its heart we just didn’t want to stray from that. We didn’t want to create a bunch of new characters.
Now obviously what that then created was this, you know, comparison between new cast and old cast which I think is – you know, we think is incredibly unfair in the sense that, you know, obviously our first cast was tremendous. We had four academy award nominees in Zombieland the movie. And it’s clearly impossible to replace those actors and the indelible market they left. That said, there’s a long history of parts both on stage and in TV shows that have become movies and movies that have become TV shows going in each direction of parts being played by multiple different actors. That is a precedent that has, definitely come long before Zombieland.
And we think we found a tremendous cast, people who really captured the essence of the characters without imitating the actors who came before them. And we’re very, very proud of them. And we just want everyone to give them a chance and to – and our feeling is if the more time they spend with them the more they’re going to love them and the more they’re going to embrace them.
On are you really planning on exploring a lot of the country? And how working with Amazon impacts the amount of gore that you’re able to show versus a regular network?
Paul Wernick: Well absolutely. I mean, we do envision this as a road show that we’re going to be heading east and traveling towards Detroit, towards the East Coast and Fisher Island to this safe community.
So absolutely. We feel that actually going on the road and shooting it in location to location, Vegas hopefully being the next spot we hit and hitting spots along the way like Mt. Rushmore and Graceland. And again we have to kind of chart it out on a map. But absolutely. This inherently is a road show and I think we ideally would love to take the production on the road.
As far as gore, I mean I don’t think we got overly gory in the movie. I think we tried to maintain that same level of horror and comedy and heart. The tone of the movie I think we tried to maintain in the pilot. Amazon, basically their edict was make the show that you want to make. Make Zombieland. And so as far as gore goes I think we do see some blood and guts. But that’s all part of the tone of the show and something that Amazon encouraged.
On what’s it like working with Kirk Ward post Woody taking on the role? Did it change the way that Kirk interpreted the role of Tallahassee?
Rhett Reese: We kind of wrote the part to him based on some of his acting strengths and what he likes to do in his physicality and his sense of humor and things like that. And ultimately when Zombieland became a movie it was impossible to cast Kirk because Hollywood wanted a star and they found that star in Woody Harrelson who was just amazing and awesome. And Woody left a very indelible mark on Tallahassee. But interestingly Tallahassee was never really intended to wear a cowboy hat and to talk with a more rural accent. He was supposed to be from a big city in Florida and was – he was supposed to be Kirk Ward originally.
So, so much of what Woody brought to the role was Woody bringing himself to the role and it was awesome. Like he created this wonderful Tallahassee that was different from the Tallahassee we had originally envisioned.
When it came time to do the series we had a lot of actors come in to audition. We wanted Kirk and but we had to go through an audition process. And we had a lot of actors come in and we saw a lot of people essentially ape Woody Harrelson. We had a million guys come in with like shark tooth necklaces and cowboy hats and T-shirts and jeans and do the southern accent. And even our initial people on our crew started to view Tallahassee through that Woody Harrelson lens like let’s go found the cowboy hat for him and let’s – for this new character and let’s figure out how to recreate him.
And our immediate reaction was that that was a mistake. We didn’t want an actor to try to imitate Woody or to try to invoke Woody because we just thought that would have been playing an actor as opposed to playing a character.
And when we went to Kirk and we said, “You’ve got to come do this,” we told him not to try to imitate Woody, not to do a southern accent. We said, “We’re not going to put you in a cowboy hat or cowboy boots. We’re going to let you be the urban Tallahassee we originally imagined and you just have to be what you originally would have been in the character.”
And that’s what he did. So that’s what you see when you see Kirk playing Tallahassee. You see a different Tallahassee and one that we enjoy in a very different way from the one that Woody brought to life.
On each episode seemingly being in the 30-minute format were you envisioning the show to be more of a horror sitcom type of show? Is that how you’re looking at it?
Paul Wernick: No not really. Again I think there’s really nothing like it on TV right now just in the half hour space. It’s not a sitcom.
And so again the (totally) invoking the horror and the comedy and the heart and the drama and the scares and then the thrills and chills, there’s really no category I think for what we’re trying to do or no model for what we’re trying to do in the half hour space which is what’s exciting for us.
You know, there was a discussion when we first conceived or were thinking about doing the show in this – incarnation. And it was well should we do an hour or half hour. And we very intentionally – Rhett and I very intentionally chose the half hour space because it did feel trailblazing to us. It did feel unique.
On finding the balance between honoring the movie while keeping the TV series its own entity?
Paul Wernick: If you think of Zombieland the brand think of the movie as the pilot episode of the show. And now we’re continuing on and telling more stories. The movie ends. They’re at Pacific Playland. They get in the car and they’re hitting the road. And really the movie was essentially episodes 1 and 2 of the show put together. And now we’re basically hitting the road on episode – essentially episode 2 or episode 3 depending on how you look at it.
On the surprising appearance of Bill Murray in the film, do you have any plans or have you given some thought to perhaps a series of surprise cameos as part of your storylines?
Rhett Reese: It’s a very good question. And the answer is absolutely yes. We will likely see a celebrity cameo down the road. Anyway so yes we absolutely plan to do it. It may be difficult to find the right person and we won’t do it unless it is the right person. But we’re going to try hard.
On what type of zombies inhabit Zombieland?
Rhett Reese: Well we’re basically using the 28 Days Later model. So our zombies are infected humans who are fast and they’re not undead. They’re not slow. And we are not adhering to some of the previous zombie rules like zombies don’t eat other zombies. Obviously you see a zombie eating another zombie in the opening scene of the pilot. And, you don’t have to shoot the zombie in its head in order to kill it.
On what kind of timeframe it’ll take to find out whether Zombieland gets picked up as a series?
Rhett Reese: We’ve been told that it’ll – that what you’re seeing right now, the pilot, will be available for about a month and that at some point either during or after that month we’ll get a better indication of whether we’re going to series. So it could be very soon or it could be three or four weeks down the road. We’re not exactly sure.
Paul Wernick: They’re using a whole host of data to figure this all out. They’re using clicks. They’re using how many people watch it through in the first sitting, if you put it on pause, if you stop it. Amazon can track basically what you had for breakfast this morning. So they’re using a whole host of data to make those decisions and reviews and clicks and everything like that. So we’re in the public’s hands.
On if the show does get picked up what kind of timeframe would we be looking at for you guys to get the cast and crew together, to start shooting again? How long would we be looking at to see more episodes?
Paul Wernick: Well we’re hoping getting back up and running early summer and getting shooting in early fall with hopefully soon thereafter going to series with it, so.
