Zombie Research Society
With the popularity of The Walking Dead, and critical acclaim of other zombie series’ like In The Flesh and The Returned, ABC will throw its hat into the ring this Spring with Resurrection. The upcoming program is based on a novel
Directed by Emmy award-winner Charles McDougall, the new series is set to premiere on Sunday, March 9th, and will investigate the mystery behind the resurrection of long-dead relatives who have recently returned to life.
The people of Arcadia, Missouri are forever changed when their deceased loved ones suddenly start to return. An 8-year-old American boy (Landon Gimenez) wakes up alone in a rice paddy in a rural Chinese province with no idea how he got there. Details start to emerge when the boy, who calls himself Jacob, recalls that his hometown is Arcadia, and an Immigration agent, J. Martin Bellamy (Omar Epps), takes him there. The home he claims as his own is occupied by an elderly couple, Henry (Kurtwood Smith) and Lucille Langston (Frances Fisher), who lost their son, Jacob, more than 30 years ago. While they look different, young Jacob recognizes them as his parents. Those closest to the family try to unravel this impossible mystery, including Sheriff Fred Langston (Matt Craven), whose wife, Barbara, drowned 30 years ago while trying to save Jacob. But this boy who claims to be the deceased Jacob knows secrets about his own death that no one else knows — secrets that Fred’s daughter, Maggie Langston (Devin Kelly), will begin to investigate and discover to be true.
At one time, the production itself was known as Forever, and has actually been at the center of controversy amid allegations of plagiarism regarding Tim Seely’s popular comic book Revival
However, ABC has just released a brand new television spot promoting the upcoming series’ premiere, which we have embedded for you below. So take a quick look, compare and critique… and then let us know what you think!
Fabrice Gobert, Les Revenants’ writer, director and showrunner actually said that Paul Abbott read the script of the serie in 2011, a year before its first broadcast and immedialty showed interest for a remake. Les Revenants serie’s script has been under public scrutiny long before its broadcast.
It’s been said in more detail, but I just feel obligated to say: been done before. I might watch it. Might not. Not really impressed. Just mildly curious.
I see you are correct about Revival first publication, but Jason Mott’s book was fully written and sold to the publisher in May of 2012, and then sold to ABC for development in July of 2012, and then finally published in August of 2013.
And yes, I saw the 2004 Les Revenants movie (It was originally titled They Came Back in the US) and in fact Les Revenants was never translated into English as The Returned until after the ABC series changed their named from The Returned to Resurrection in May of 2013. The series was originally translated as Rebound. The movie is VERY strange and has little in common with Jason’s book or for that matter, the French TV series on which it is based. In the movie something like 70 million people in France come back all at once and people seemed more concerned with how they are going to employ and house everyone. There’s no small mountain community or reservoir or…mild self cannibalism.
How, after watching the film and the series (which I assume you did) can you say they were nothing like each other. All you’ve done is point out some minor differences between a film and its tv adaptation.
The book The Returned by Jason Mott (on which Resurrection is based) was fully written, submitted for publication, sold for publication, and sold for TV development at ABC Studios (July of 2012) well before Revival was published (December of 2012), or the French series aired in France (November 2012). Really hard to plagiarize something that isn’t available when you write the book!
From Lazarus, to Twilight Zone, to Yomigaeri, to They Came Back (on which the French series is based), to Babylon Fields, to the book The Returned, to Les Revenant (the series), to Resurrection the TV series, non-zombies have been coming back from the dead in stories for a long long time. It’s all about the execution. I’m looking forward to checking out Resurrection. I liked the French series and Mott’s book (which have very little in common beyond the one-liner) and from the trailer seems like the ABC is the Spielberg version of the concept whereas the French series was the David Lynch version.
Actually the first issue of Revival was published in June/July of 2012. At that point, Mott had only written a novella called The First. His full novel The Returned wasn’t published until August 2012.
Additionally, the French television series The Returned (Les Revenants) is based on a film of the same name originally released in 2004.
So your timeline is a little off. However, I believe that you’re basically correct. This is an old idea and the accusations of plagiarism amount to little more than rumors at this point.
The last thing that I would add is that A&E officially announced an American remake of “The Returned” (the French television series, not the book) on September 27th, 2013. So I imagine that any legal issues have already been sorted out… but who knows?
I see you are correct about Revival first publication, but Jason Mott’s book was fully written and sold to the publisher in May of 2012, and then sold to ABC for development in July of 2012, and then finally published in August of 2013.
And yes, I saw the 2004 Les Revenants movie (It was originally titled They Came Back in the US) and in fact Les Revenants was never translated into English as The Returned until after the ABC series changed their named from The Returned to Resurrection in May of 2013. The series was originally translated as Rebound. The movie is VERY strange and has little in common with Jason’s book or for that matter, the French TV series on which it is based. In the movie something like 70 million people in France come back all at once and people seemed more concerned with how they are going to employ and house everyone. There’s no small mountain community or reservoir or…mild self cannibalism.