Zombieland (2009)

Zombieland is a 2009 American zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin as survivors of a zombie apocalypse. The film follows geeky college kid, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) making his way through a variety of different scenarios through this new zombie apocalypse. Columbus meets survivors Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock. Together, they take an extended road trip across the Southwestern United States in an attempt to find a sanctuary free from zombies.

Plot
Two months have passed since a mutated strain of mad cow disease mutated into "mad person disease" that became "mad zombie disease" which overran the entire United States population, turning American people into vicious zombies. Unaffected college student "Columbus" (Jesse Eisenberg) is making his way from his college dorm in Austin, Texas to Columbus, Ohio to see whether his parents are still alive. He encounters "Tallahassee" (Woody Harrelson), another survivor who is particularly violent in killing zombies. Though he does not appear to be sociable, Tallahassee reluctantly allows Columbus to travel with him. Tallahassee mentions he misses his "puppy" that was killed by zombies, as well as his affinity for Twinkies, which he actively tries to find. Survivors of the zombie epidemic have learned that it is best not to grow attached to other survivors, because they could die at any moment, so many have taken to using their city of origin as nicknames, i.e. "Columbus" is from Columbus, Ohio.

The pair meet "Wichita" (Emma Stone) and her younger sister "Little Rock" (Abigail Breslin) in a grocery store. The sisters are con artists, and trick Tallahassee and Columbus into handing over their weapons by pretending that Little Rock was infected by the disease, then steal their Escalade. The two men find a yellow Hummer H2 loaded with weapons and go after the sisters. However, the girls spring another trap for them and take them hostage. Tallahassee steals his gun back and has a stand-off with Wichita, until Columbus lashes out in anger that they have bigger problems to worry about, resulting in an uneasy truce between them. The sisters reveal that they are going to the "Pacific Playland" amusement park in Los Angeles, an area supposedly free of zombies. After learning his home town has been destroyed, and his parents likely killed, Columbus decides to accompany the others to California. Along the trip, Columbus persists in trying to impress and woo Wichita.

When the group reaches Hollywood, Tallahassee directs them to Bill Murray's mansion. Tallahassee and Wichita meet Murray himself, uninfected but disguised as a zombie so he can walk safely around town (and play golf). Murray is killed when Columbus shoots him, mistaking him for a real zombie during a practical joke while watching Ghostbusters with Little Rock. Columbus realizes during a game of Monopoly that Tallahassee has not been grieving for his dog, but rather for his young son. Wichita becomes increasingly attracted to Columbus, and Tallahassee bonds with Little Rock, with whom he was previously at odds. Despite Wichita's attraction to Columbus, she fears attachment and leaves with Little Rock for Pacific Playland the next morning. Columbus decides to go after Wichita, and convinces Tallahassee to join him.

At Pacific Playland, the sisters activate all the rides and lights and begin to enjoy the park, but also unwittingly draw the attention of all the zombies in the surrounding area. A chase ensues, and just as the sisters are trapped on a drop tower ride called Blast Off, Tallahassee and Columbus arrive. Tallahassee lures the zombies away from the tower, creating a distraction for Columbus to get to the tower ride; both use the attractions to their advantage. Tallahassee eventually locks himself in a game booth, shooting zombies as they arrive. Columbus successfully evades and shoots through several zombies to reach the tower, but not before conquering some of his phobias and even changing one of his rules of survival. In thanks, Wichita kisses Columbus and reveals her real name, Krista; Little Rock gives Tallahassee a Twinkie. Columbus realises he now has what he's always wanted: a family.

Cast

 * Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus
 * Woody Harrelson as Tallahassee
 * Emma Stone as Wichita/Krista
 * Abigail Breslin as Little Rock
 * Amber Heard as 406
 * Bill Murray as Himself
 * Mike White as Gas Station Owner

The rules
A running gag (and a central theme throughout the film) is the list of rules Columbus comes up with for surviving in the zombie-infested world. By the end of the film, his list has thirty-three rules, yet only a few are mentioned. A series of promotional videos starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg expanded on the list presented in the film.

Character names
The main characters do not use each other's real names, but identify themselves using place names (Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, Little Rock) that relate to them. This includes Columbus's neighbor, named 406 after her room, and his fictional sexual conquest "Beverly Hills", as well as Sister Cynthia Knickerbocker, whom Columbus identifies as a "Zombie Kill of the Week" winner, and whose surname is actually an obsolete term for a citizen or inhabitant of New York City. There is one exception in Bill Murray playing himself. At the end of the film, Wichita tells Columbus that her real name is Krista.

Writing
Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick stated that the idea for Zombieland had "lived in [their] heads" for four-and-a-half years. The story was originally developed in 2005 as a spec script for television pilot in the summer of 2005. Wernick stated "We've got a long brainstorming document that still to this day gets updated on a near-weekly basis with ideas". Director Ruben Fleischer helped develop the script from a series into a self-contained feature by providing a specific destination to the road story, the amusement park.

Earlier versions of the script called the protagonists Flagstaff and Albuquerque, rather than Columbus and Tallahassee, and the female characters were called Wichita and Stillwater. The celebrity who would cameo as himself was written as a zombified, dancing Patrick Swayze, including references to highlights of Swayze's career, even including a recreation of the "potter's wheel" scene from Ghost. Later versions of the script considered Sylvester Stallone, Joe Pesci, Mark Hamill, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Jean-Claude Van Damme or Matthew McConaughey as the celebrity, but Bill Murray eventually played the part, most of which was improvised according to Harrelson. Harrelson accepted the role on four conditions, two of which were about casting and crew. The third condition required the film to have an environmentally conscious set. The fourth condition required that the director not eat dairy products for a week, a task which Fleischer described was "like for an alcoholic not to drink". He succeeded and maintained a vegetarian diet for 11 months.

Filming and design
Principal photography began February 2009 in Hollywood, California with scenes being shot at Scream Fest Theme Park and other locations. Filming continued in March in Atlanta, Hapeville, Morrow, Decatur, Newnan and Powder Springs, Georgia, where actress Abigail Breslin celebrated her 13th birthday by adopting a shelter puppy. Zombieland was filmed in digital, using the Panavision Genesis digital camera and had a 41-day shooting schedule.

The theme park scenes for the film's climax, Pacific Playland, were mostly shot in Valdosta, Georgia's local theme park Wild Adventures Water and Theme Park. Some of the rides prominently featured in the film include Pharaoh's Fury; the Double Shot (redubbed "Blast Off"); the Rattler; the Aviator; and the Bug Out. Another coaster seen, but not used, is the park's iconic Boomerang roller coaster. A haunted house facade was constructed at the theme park; but the interior was filmed on location at Netherworld Haunted House outside the city limits of Atlanta. Special effects makeup designer Tony Gardner, who helped Rick Baker create the signature look of Michael Jackson's music video "Thriller" and has contributed to other Hollywood films like 127 Hours, Hairspray, and There's Something About Mary, was brought on to design the look of the film's zombies. Michael Bonvillain, who was Cloverfield's cinematographer, was brought on for the "lively" hand-held camerawork. "Basically, it's the end of the world; the entire nation is zombies", stated Gardner. "And [the humans] are trying to get from the east coast to the west coast". For one shooting scene, Gardner said, "There were 160 zombies, in prosthetics, on set in an amusement park". He said it is "how you present yourself as a zombie that determines how people will react to you" and that "once the contact lenses go in", he thinks "all bets are off".

Gardner said he was excited about working on the film with first-time filmmaker Ruben Fleischer, who gave him a free rein in his zombie design. "[We] are just trying to be real extreme with it", stated Gardner, "and trying to balance the scares out with the comedy". He described having to makeover physically attractive actors who usually benefit from their looks as "a little off-putting" after seeing some of them in their character makeup for the first time.

The zombies in Zombieland were described by the casting director as:

Ferocious, infected people that move erratically. They are diseased, as opposed to undead. These are not the lumbering walking dead of Romero's zombie movies, but instead the super jacked up 28 Days Later/Dawn of the Dead zombies. They are scary, gnarly and gross.

Harrelson had input into the wardrobe for his character, Tallahassee. "I never worked so long and hard on an outfit in my life," the actor has stated. "What this guy wears is who he is. You want to get a sense of this guy as soon as you see him. So I pick out the necklaces, the sunglasses. But the hat? The minute you see that on Tallahassee, you buy him. He's real. And he's got a real cool hat". Harrelson's choice of headwear for Tallahassee came not just down to style, but also to his environmental passions: the distinctive hat is handmade in Brazil by a company called The Real Deal using recycled cargo-truck tarps and wire from old truck tires.

Shortly after finishing the filming of Zombieland, Harrelson had an altercation with a TMZ photographer at New York City's La Guardia Airport. His defense was that he was still in character and thought the cameraman was a zombie.

Effects
The special effects team worked to create several visual elements. One of these elements is "The Rules for Survival", which appear on-screen as they are related to the audience by Columbus: "Do cardio", "Beware of bathrooms", "Check the back seat", and so forth. The texts are rendered in 3-D. "When a previously stated rule becomes relevant—when nature calls, for instance—the relevant text pops up, occasionally getting splattered with blood." Slate's Josh Levin said, "The pop-up bit works precisely because Zombieland unspools like a game—how can you survive a zombie horde armed with a shotgun, an SUV and a smart mouth?"

Release
A trailer of Zombieland was released on June 18, 2009. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, the film was released on October 2, 2009, a week earlier than originally advertised.

Box office
The film debuted at #1 at the box office in North America, with ticket sales of $24,733,155 over its opening weekend averaging about $8,147 from 3,036 theaters, matching its production budget. It was credited as having the second highest-grossing start on record for a zombie film behind the Dawn of the Dead remake and as "the first [American] horror comedy in recent memory to find significant theatrical success". The film grossed $60.8 million in 17 days, becoming the top-grossing zombie film in history; the record was previously held by the Dawn of the Dead remake. Resident Evil: Afterlife claimed the record the following year, grossing over $290 million worldwide. Zombieland closed on December 13, 2009, with a final gross of $75,590,286 in North America and $26,801,254 in other territories for a worldwide gross of $102,391,540 worldwide.

CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave Zombieland an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

Critical response
Zombieland received critical acclaim. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 90% based on reviews from 233 critics, with a rating average of 7.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Wickedly funny and featuring plenty of gore, Zombieland is proof that the zombie subgenre is far from dead." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews from mainstream critics, the film holds a score of 73 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Film critic Roger Ebert was surprised by Zombieland's ability to be significantly humorous while zombies remained the focus of the film and felt that "all of this could have been dreary, but not here. The filmmakers show invention and well-tuned comic timing". He credited Bill Murray's cameo appearance as receiving the "single biggest laugh" of the year, and gave the film 3 out of 4 stars. Murray's cameo was called out for attention by other reviewers: Marc Savlov of Austin Chronicle credited it as "the single most outrageously entertaining unexpected celebrity cameo of any film—genre or otherwise—" that he had seen in a "long, long time" and that while the film did little to advance the genre, its smart script and high action made it very enjoyable. He categorized Zombieland as being "dead set against being dead serious" with its tonal pallor "ha[ving] more in common with a foreshortened It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World than with 28 Days or Weeks Later".

The film's witty use of dialogue and popular culture was also praised by Ty Burr of The Boston Globe, who said the film "makes no claims to greatness" but that what it "has instead—in spades—is deliciously weary end-of-the-world banter"; Michael Ordona of Los Angeles Times praised director Fleischer for "bring[ing] impeccable timing and bloodthirsty wit to the proceedings".

Some reviewers saw deeper levels in the plot and cinematography: cinematographer Michael Bonvillain was praised for capturing "some interesting images amid the post-apocalyptic carnival of carnage, as when he transforms the destruction of a souvenir shop into a rough ballet", while Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com said "the picture is beautifully paced" and highlighted "a halcyon middle section where, in what could be viewed as a sideways homage to Rebel Without a Cause, our rootless wanderers share a brief respite in an empty, lavish mansion".

Claudia Puig of USA Today said that "underlying the carnage in Zombieland is a sweetly beating heart", and that "This road movie/horror flick/dark comedy/earnest romance/action film hybrid laces a gentle drollness through all the bloody mayhem". Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum concluded, "At the bone, Zombieland is a polished, very funny road picture shaped by wisenheimer cable-TV sensibilities and starring four likable actors, each with an influential  following".

Josh Levin of Slate drew parallels with Adventureland: in both films Jesse Eisenberg tries to win over his dream girl, a girl who has been hardened by life, and both feature a theme park. He goes so far as to call the film "an undead Adventureland—a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for the Facebook generation".

Time magazine's Richard Corliss described the film as "an exhilarating ride, start to finish" and reasoned "Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg set a high bar for this subgenre with Shaun of the Dead,  but Reese, Werner and Fleischer may have trumped them". "This isn't just a good zombie comedy. It's a damn fine movie, period. And that's high praise, coming from a vampire guy", he stated.

Not all comparisons with Shaun of the Dead were favorable: Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York characterized the "extra injection of pop-culture neuroticism" as "the one innovation" of the film, declaring that while Zombieland was funny, it wasn't particularly scary and stated that it "simply isn't as witty as Shaun of the Dead, forever the yuks-meet-yucks standard". Similarly, The Globe and Mail's Rick Groen said "it's far more charming than chilling and way more funny than frightening", though he suggested that Rule No. 32 to 'enjoy the little things' was worth observing for a light comedy. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times classified the film as "[a] minor diversion dripping in splatter and groaning with self-amusement" and lamented the lack of a real plot more concrete than a series of comedy takes on zombie-slaying.

Home media
Zombieland was released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on February 2, 2010 on Blu-ray Disc and DVD. The film was released on March 15, 2010 on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK. Select Best Buy stores sold a special edition on both DVD and Blu-ray with an additional disc featuring two featurettes. It was also released as a film for the PSP UMD.

As of January, 2015, the film has sold 1,935,598 DVDs and 657,958 Blu-ray Discs totalling $39,165,702 and $16,291,929 respectively for a total of $55,457,631 in North America.