“Zombieland” has proven to be that rare thing, a (relatively) low budget genre picture that is now beloved by both critics and audiences – only “District 9” has had a better reaction this year. Director Ruben Fleischer, a former assistant to Miguel Artera (“The Good Girl”), who moved on to music videos for the likes of Dizzee Rascal and M.I.A, is now hotly sought after in town, and has been linked to a series of projects.
The first film he was attached to, pre-“Zombieland,” was “Psycho Funky Chimp,” a coming-of-age movie about a teenager who acquires a rare Pez dispenser — this script has been around for ages and was actually written by “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” writer Michael Bacall and was once a project that Todd Phillips was once attached to. That seems to have stalled, however, and he’s now loosely attached to a pair of movies. First is “The Bachelorette,” a self-described female version of “The Hangover,” from terrible producer Neal Moritz, which is currently seeking new writers. The other project is a Will Ferrell/Adam McKay produced movie called “Daddy’s Home,” set to star Ferrell as a divorced man who returns to his family, causing friction with his wife’s uptight new husband (likely to be played by Ed Helms).
Less likely, but both possible, are the Jonah Hill-scribed reboot of “21 Jump Street,” and “Neighborhood Watch,” a 20th Century Fox movie about a man who discovers a conspiracy when he moves to suburbia, which originally had Ferrell and David Dobkin (“Wedding Crashers”) attached. Both Fleischer and Rob Letterman, director of “Monsters Vs. Aliens” and the forthcoming “Gulliver’s Travels,” are on the list for this one
None of these sound particularly promising, but maybe Fleischer can bring the freshness of his debut feature to these otherwise generic-sounding studio comedies. They could be at least amusing, escapist fun. “Zombieland,” was decent, but not Brecht either. We imagine that the inevitable “Zombieland 2” will want Fleischer on board too, so we’ll see what he ends up signing on the dotted line for.