Zombieland, the surprise cult hit starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Oscar Winner Emma Stone (Best Leading Actress: La La Land), will be returning to screens hopefully in October 2019 as announced by Sony Pictures last Friday.
The film, which features the four actors making their way around a zombie filled United States, was a sleeper hit comedy film that found a lot more success on home media than it did in the theaters. Now thankfully those home media sales have convinced not only the cast from the film, but the director Ruben Fleischer and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. While Reese and Wernick have become fan culture royalty in recent years for co-writing both Deadpool and Deadpool 2, the latter alongside Ryan Reynolds, the fast-tracking of this and the return of Fleischer is hopefully a positive vote of confidence in Venom, another off-center superhero adaptation that Fleischer is directing for Sony Pictures.
Zombieland 2 has been long speculated about but rarely seeming in danger of occurring. Rumors of sequel started percolating in 2009, thanks to strong home media sales. Additionally, since then, Jesse Eisenberg and Emma Stone have grown into bonafide stars, with Emma Stone particularly rising so high as to win an Oscar last year for La La Land. For that same reason, a sequel increasingly seemed remote, even after Sony was rumored to be looking to do one in 2014. Add on a failed attempt at a pilot for a Zombieland TV series in 2013… it just seemed like too much time had passed.
Now it seems like the timing is right to bring the four back into the zombie filled world of Zombieland, with production rumored to begin in January of next year and to release in October 2019. The quick turnaround hopefully means a committed, down and dirty aesthetic for the film, like the first movie.
With any luck, Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) will find more than just one Twinkie in Zombieland 2.
