After ten years of “The Walking Dead” and countless other zombie films and TV series, it’s fair to say we’ve reached zombie oversaturation and fatigue. But even with ‘Walking Dead’ receiving record-low ratings in recent years, Hollywood is still milking the horror subgenre for all its worth — a sequel to “Zombieland” and Zack Snyder’s “Army of the Dead” are just two of the recent high-profile projects in the works. And joining them, albeit with a very different tone and storyline, is a TV series based on the popular zombie rom-com, “Warm Bodies.”
Lionsgate just announced that filmmaker Jonathan Levine (“Long Shot,” “50/50“) has signed an overall deal with the studio. And while we don’t have a long list of projects the writer-director is in the process of developing, we do know that he’s going to be spearheading a new iteration of his 2013 breakout film, “Warm Bodies.”
For those not familiar with “Warm Bodies,” the film starred Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer as a zombie and a human girl, respectively, who fall in love. It’s an unabashedly weird movie, but one that has definitely found its audience in the long run (despite only grossing $116 million worldwide at the time) and stayed in the discourse as one of the better zombie projects of the last decade. And a TV series could be a fun way to expand on the universe brought to life by Levine.
The deal that Levine signed is to add his production banner Megamix to the Lionsgate family. His production company is a collaboration with former Lionsgate executive Gillian Bohrer.
“Lionsgate is the perfect home for Megamix, a studio to both my most successful and favorite movie-making experiences,” said Levine (via THR). “Joe [Drake, chairman of Lionsgate] and Nathan [Kahane, Lionsgate motion picture group president] have been great collaborators and friends who have supported me over the years and are as committed as Gillian, and I are to nurture unique, creative and commercial visions, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.”
No word on a release date for “Warm Bodies,” but we’ll keep you posted.
Here’s a trailer for the 2013 film: