STACK #180 Oct 2019

CINEMA FEATURE

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A decade after Zombieland became a box office hit and cult classic, the lead cast –Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin – have reunited for the hilarious sequel Zombieland: DoubleTap , which sees our heroes travel through comic mayhem from theWhite House to the heartland. Words Gill Pringle

I n Zombieland: Double Tap , our four slayers must now face off against many new kinds of zombies that have evolved since the original movie, including some new human survivors. More than anything they must confront the growing pains of their own snarky makeshift family. In a small editing room tucked away on the backlot of Sony Studios in Culver City, Los Angeles, director Ruben Fleischer tells STACK what led him to reunite with Zombieland ’s original writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Naturally, the creative team wished to capitalise on the success of the original sooner rather than

reach his family in Ohio, a gun-toting tough- guy [Woody Harrelson] trying to snag the last Twinkie, and a pair of sisters [Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin] trying to get to an amusement park. The unlikely quartet ultimately joined forces to traverse a zombie-filled America with just 30 rules to help them survive; pro-tips like “look in the back seat”, “double tap” and “avoid public restrooms”. Taking on the names of their birthplaces – Eisenberg’s Columbus and Harrelson’s Tallahassee, Stone’s Wichita and Breslin’s Little Rock – the foursome became a generation’s favourite zombie slayers. Today they have evolved. Presently camped out in the White House, Harrelson is antsy while Columbus and Wichita have been dating until the sisters decide to take off without them. Left to his own devices, Columbus wastes little time in finding a replacement in the shape of Zoey Deutch’s hilarious, pink-wearing, valley-speaking Madison, whom he meets in an abandoned mall. Introducing Rosario Dawson’s Nevada, Luke

‘ Zombieland was such a fun experience; people really liked that movie. It would be great to get that cast back together and go on another adventure’," he says. “And so, we started figuring out an idea for the movie. Rhett and Paul, who wrote the original, were busy doing Deadpool , so they served as executive producers and helped me come up with the story [with Dave Callaham]. Basically, it took four years of writing drafts to get to a place where we all felt confident to make the movie,” says Fleischer, who also took a break from zombie planning while directing Tom Hardy in last year’s Venom .

“The Zombieland cast was all really excited about doing a sequel, but they wanted to make sure that if we were going to do this, it had to be at least as good as the original.” The 2009 comedy-horror

Basically, it took four years of writing drafts to get to a place where we all felt confident to make the movie

later, but life got in the way. It was only after Fleischer completed directing Gangster Squad in 2013 that he began to seriously contemplate a sequel. “I was like,

began with a shy student (Jesse Eisenberg) trying to

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OCTOBER 2019

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