Zombie Research Society
Despite enjoying tremendous global name recognition, the Amazon-backed pilot for the small-screen adaptation of Zombieland will not be expanded into a full series.
Co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick received heavy criticism from fans for using the same characters they had created in the wildly successful film version when creating the new show, and the pilot never seemed to hit its stride.
Reese was vocal on twitter about his dissapointment:
“I’ll never understand the vehement hate the pilot received from die-hard Zombieland fans. You guys successfully hated it out of existence.”
Zombieland was originally developed as a TV series for CBS before it was shelved and later transformed into the 2009 big screen hit starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.
I am a die-hard zombie fan, I have read a huge amount of books and watch all types of Zombie films etc, and I can understand why the writers are disappointed at the “haters” – but this works both ways, perhaps [some of] the viewers are disappointed with the writers. I was so excited when I heard about the potential series but you took a brilliant film, with brilliant characters and great humour, introduced new actors who has little or no screen presence, who could not deliver on humour and thought we would like it simply because Zombieland and The Walking Dead were such a success. If we have hated it out of existence, maybe it was not meant to be, alternatively, take these points as constructive criticism and work on new characters. You cannot replace the likes of Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigain Breslin but you could introduce new ones in the same apocalypse but from their perspective with their own characteristics rather than 2nd rate copycatting.
The only good part of the pilot was the first five minutes or so. (And those five minutes were awesome).
Once they started with same characters/different actors part, I knew it was doomed to fail. You might be able to do that kind of a reboot years down the road, but not this soon. The world of Zombieland was so vast, it should have been easy to find a different group of survivors to follow and root for.
I strongly disliked it. the actors were not very good..as other people stated had it just been a new cast with a NEW STORY that would have been fine…maybe switching actors for Dr.Who is ok…but not for something like this. it had potential just executed badly
They don’t understand the hate??
You take what people loved about the wildly successful movie and changed it. The Characters are what made Zombieland so successful. Not just their names in the movie, but the people that played them aswell. I could NEVER picture another Tallahassee. If it’s not Woody Harrelson then it shouldn’t be there. Could you really picture someone else yelling “where is my G** D*** Twinkie!”? I really don’t think anyone could do it the same justice.
Putting different people in such big shoes is always a bad move.
loved the pilot
I haven’t gotten around to watching the pilot yet, but based on the bits I saw I can understand why people didn’t like it. When Stargate was made into a TV show, there was a lot of pushback initially from die-hard fans, but some of the core character traits remained in the characters they retained even if the actors changed, and new characters were added. This guy may be irritated that people didn’t like it, but it looks like he tried to do a port of a video game, and it just didn’t come across like it should. The pilot failed because the director and producer’s didn’t put together a strong enough cast and story to pull us die-hard Zombieland fans in. That being said, I don’t think the idea should be given up on, just re-tooled.
I never even bothered watching it. If they had of created new characters for the show that would have been one thing, but to see someone else try to do the same thing Woody Harrelson did only not as good just didn’t interest me.
I couldn’t get into it at all. Felt the actors were trying too hard and Tallahassee was just annoying. 🙁
i’m not a hater
Why can’t people that hate on stuff just let it alone and let the people who enjoy it, enjoy? Thanks for ruining it for everyone assholes.
The people that are looked at for views on shows are a generation that want it all now! The pilot was flawed, but had character and could have been built into something great…but now we may never know. I was really looking forward to a second episode…and better special effects…no more CGI blood! hahaha