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When the original Zombieland first debuted it was an instant classic. Deep in the height of the zombie craze, Zombieland was a smart, witty, and hilarious story of found family surviving during a Zombie Apocalypse. It was so successful that Amazon attempted to remake the movie as a TV Series. Though without the original Zombieland cast, and a subpar script, it didn't make it past the pilot stage. But what made this Zombieland TV Show SO terrible?
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It's George Washington's birthday
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Our tongues are red, white, and blue from eating bullet pops. I just blew up an entire fireworks factory
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What could possibly be missing? Woody Harrelson. That's what's missing. Also, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin
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Because although you might not guess it, that guy is supposed to be Zombieland's Tallahassee
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And those people he's talking to are supposed to be Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock
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The scene comes from the Zombieland TV pilot made by Amazon in 2013
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And while a series based on the hit movie sounds like a great idea in theory
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in Zombieland, everything comes down to execution. In 2013, streaming services were just starting to produce original series
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and in what would prove to be a short-lived effort, Amazon Studios decided to try and find out what its customers wanted
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by asking them directly through an initiative they called Pilot Season. The studio put 14 original pilots on its platform and asked customers to watch them
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One of the options was a pilot based on the Ruben Fleischer-directed horror comedy
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Zombieland. Written by future Deadpool scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Warnick, the movie presented
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a surprisingly sweet and lighthearted, albeit still brash, edgy, and violent take on the
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standard post-zombie apocalypse survival genre. The film starred Eisenberg as Columbus, a neurotic
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20-something loner trying to get by in what he calls Zombieland by sticking to an elaborate list
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of survival rules he's created. Rule number one for surviving Zombieland, cardio
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Along the way, he befriends the zombie-killing, Twinkie-obsessed cowboy, Tallahassee, and a crafty pair of sisters, Wichita and Little Rock
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The four become a found family. Columbus and Wichita become a couple. And in the end, he learns that attachments aren't bad
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And love is worth breaking the rules for. The script was sharp, fresh, and filled with hilarious gimmicks
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like Columbus's survival rules, the zombie kill of the week, and a show-stealing cameo by comedy legend
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and the finished film masterfully pulled off a delicate tonal balancing act
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that seamlessly and stylishly combined horror movie thrills with cartoonish slapstick comedy
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and romantic earnestness Audiences ate it up Zombieland opened at number one and was also a hit with critics who particularly praised its charismatic cast A sequel of some sort was inevitable
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and while a full-blown theatrical follow-up wouldn't materialize until 2019, the creators weren't just resting on their laurels
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They were trying to bring Zombieland to TV. Of course, turning hit movies into television shows can be tricky
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The storytelling needs of a 90-minute theatrical film are vastly different from those of an ongoing TV series
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and the strange alchemy that makes any given film work can't always be created at will by different actors and directors
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But to most fans' surprise, the Zombieland movie had originally been written as a television pilot
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It was only later converted into a feature film, and it was Fleischer who came up with the final destination of the amusement park to make the story feel more self-contained
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The four central characters were always conceived to have ongoing episodic adventures
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and gags like the zombie kill of the week were invented to literally recur in each week's installment
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So after the success of the film, putting the world back into its original small screen format likely seemed like a no-brainer
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Just be nice to see a familiar face, or any face that doesn't have blood dripping from its lips and flesh between its teeth
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Zombieland fans were, at first, pretty excited at the prospect of an ongoing series written by the original writers
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and directed by Eli Craig of the well-regarded horror comedy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
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But when it became public that the show was to follow Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock
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and the roles were predictably being recast, the announcement was greeted by an intense backlash
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Some of the highly vocal sections of the fan base recoiled at the idea of seeing the beloved characters
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portrayed by other actors and complained that the creators should have come up with new characters for the show instead
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The creators, for their part, weren't completely surprised, with Warnick saying, we had four Academy Award nominees in the movie
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so yes, we were nervous about recasting. And indeed, recasting iconic film roles for TV
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has always been something of a gamble. For every film-to-TV adaptation that pulled it off
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like MASH or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there are far more like Uncle Buck Ferris Bueller and Dirty Dancing which just couldn get fans to accept new faces in iconic roles It possible the whole casting controversy would have been quickly forgotten if the pilot had
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knocked everyone's socks off, but when it finally dropped in April of 2013, it didn't do anything to
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change anyone's mind. The episode opens with a sequence where two office workers complain about
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their first world problems while failing to notice people being killed by zombies right
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outside their window. One of my apps is missing. Somehow I deleted it
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Yeah, but deleted. Only I don't know which one's gone, because it's gone, and I won't figure it out
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Until you need to use it. Columbus, now played by Tyler Ross, provides narration as he did in the film
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eventually revealing the moment to be an origin story for, and reintroduction to
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the character of Tallahassee, now played by actor Kirk Ward. The story then picks up more or less where the movie left off
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and we meet Ross' Columbus along with New Wichita, played by Maeda Walsh
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and Little Rock, played by Isabella Vidovich. The movie's happy ending is quickly undone
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and the status quo restored by making it clear Columbus and Wichita have broken up
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although he still openly pines for her. It's also established that the team has made an ally out of the sultry-voiced on-star operator
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they call Detroit. I tell you when I hear your voice. And you put the awesome in my blossom
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Who now acts as something of a guide for them. Other than that, everything is just like in the film
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right down to the erratic tone and gags like the survival rules and the zombie kills of the week
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The problem is, unlike in the movie, very little of it works in the TV show. For starters, the
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script, which simultaneously thinks we'll understand who Tallahassee is at the mention
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of his hometown, but will also need the entire world to be re-explained to us from the ground up
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is overloaded with stilted exposition. It lacks the clever breeziness of the film's script
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and it leaves the characters feeling less like people and more like empty vehicles for world
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building and contrived comic interactions. And despite being an accomplished director in the genre
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Craig seemed to have a hard time balancing the various tones of Zombieland
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Rather than pivot between scary, funny, adventurous, and romantic, everything is just more goofy overall
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The actors, meanwhile, are placed in the unenviable position of having to channel the original performers in their roles and it leaves them all feeling like almost comically generic imitations of their movie counterparts It not funny It the tiniest bit funny
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This is especially a problem for Wards Tallahassee, who, deprived of Harrelson's megawatt charisma
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comes off feeling like any generically obnoxious snarky guy you've ever seen
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Woo! Look at that! I did that! Perfect. It's especially ironic given that, according to the creators
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the role was literally created for Ward before Harrelson ever played it
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But worst of all is that, trapped in their various impressions, the cast has no genuine chemistry
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Columbus and Wichita don't even feel like they're in love, Wichita and Little Rock don't vibe like sisters
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and the whole found family vibe is gone. Yes, the film had clever gags, witty dialogue
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I'm not easy to get along with, and I'm cinching you're a bit of a
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and stylish action scenes, but at the end of the day, it was the connection we felt to those four characters
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and the heart infused into them by the original cast that really made everything else work
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Reese would later imply via tweet that it was the reaction of the hardcore fans who resented
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the recasting that killed the show, saying, I'll never understand the vehement hate the pilot
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received from diehard Zombieland fans. You guys successfully hated it out of existence
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But contemporary reviews made it clear that the diehards were far from the only ones who didn't
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like the Zombieland pilot, and Amazon viewers apparently didn't feel any different. Along with
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audience votes, Amazon's pilot season measured other factors, like how many people tuned in, who they were demographically
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and how long they watched for, among others. Whatever proved the decisive factor
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Zombieland did not make the cut. Zombieland would rise from the dead and walk the earth again
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in the form of 2019's Zombieland Double Tap, the sequel which reunited the entire original cast
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and director Fleischer scored with audiences, if not so much with critics
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We suspect that's because regardless of how tightly the dialogue was written or how stylish the action scenes look
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what fans really want from Zombieland is to hang with the versions of Columbus, Tallahassee
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Wichita, and Little Rock that they always knew and loved. Ah,
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Honey, I'm home