'Zombieland: Double Tap' Will Introduce A New, Evolved Kind Of Zombie
It's been 10 years since Zombieland hit theaters. The fact that the horror comedy made $102.3 million at the box office on a budget of $23.6 million should have meant a sequel got fast-tracked, but it took far longer than expected to come together. But here we are, a decade later, with all four of the primary cast members now Oscar nominees, and it's time to return to the post-apocalyptic world where zombies have taken over everything. And believe it or not, there are some new zombies waiting to be discovered.
Zombieland: Double Tap will bring back some of the same old brain-hungry zombies from the first movie, but many of them now have their own classification based on their behavior. Beyond that, there's one new zombie that really poses a threat to Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin, and they're not nearly as easy to dispatch with as the others. Find out more about the Zombieland Double Tap zombies below.
One would think that spending 10 years in Zombieland would result in seeing all the undead that the world has to offer. As director Ruben Fleischer explains to Fandango, there are even zombie classifications:
"I think our heroes are a little complacent because the zombies don't present much of a challenge anymore. They've started to categorize them into different groups. There's ones that they call Homers, who are kind of the dumber zombies. There are the Ninjas who are a little bit more crafty and they might sneak up on you. And then there's the Hawkings, who are smarter zombies."
It would make sense that some zombies would be smarter than others. Perhaps some didn't become zombies until more recently, so they haven't lost all their brain power yet. The question is whether they are actively smarter, like how the velociraptors in Jurassic Park are the superior dinosaurs, or if they're just not as dumb as the Homers.
At the very least, there's one new kind of zombie on the scene, and it's a force to be reckoned with. Fleischer explains:
"There's a new kind of zombie that they haven't met before called a T-800, a name for the infamous Terminator. These T-800s are much more dangerous, threatening form of zombie. For the first time, I think our heroes feel like they're in true jeopardy because of this newly evolved form of zombie."
If it's being called a T-800, that would seem to imply that they're not as easy to kill as the rest of the zombies. But why? What makes them harder to kill? If they're "newly evolved," then does that mean there are some undead who simply won't die again? Fleischer isn't telling for now.
Much like the first movie, we'll find out about these zombies through the eyes of Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), since he's still narrating the story of Zombieland. There are also some new rules for us to learn about in the 10 years since the last movie, and Zombie Kill of the Week is still a thing after all this time. But will audiences still care a decade later? We'll find out when Zombieland: Double Tap arrives on October 19, 2019.