UPDATE: Zombieland set for TV? The rumours start up. Again.

Zombieland is one of our favourite horror-comedy movies – and not just for the awesome Bill Murray comeo – and, as many of you know, it was originally pitched as a TV Pilot. Now it seems that it may have come full circle…

First came Ruben Fleischer, director of Zombieland and current release Gangster Squad, who announced that while he’s keen to make a sequel, the odds are stacked against it now as they just can’t get the script worked out. Now, i09 are reporting they have seen script pages from the TV Pilot which picks up after the movie.

According to the script, the show would pick up shortly after the movie, but with slight changes to the main characters, all of whom return. We can only assume that CBS have twigged that, thanks to The Walking Dead, zombies are cool again, especially on TV, and because of this they’ve decided to make this happen. Again.

The script pages, for casting purposes, also contained information for the main characters, which i09 have laid out in the following way, tying into the events in episode one:

Tallahassee (Played in the movie by Woody Harrelson) is still kind of a snarky weirdo, but he seems to have a much less spiky relationship with Columbus. He and Columbus have a pretty amusing thing where they riff on the fact that Steven Seagal movies always have three-word titles like “Marked for Justice” or “May Cause Diarrhea.” But Tallahassee also dispenses homespun wisdom about how to feel happy with your life. He also tells a weird story about being in a trailer park with a perpetually nude Matthew McConaughey. He also has a somewhat heartwarming scene where he tells Columbus that he’s been wandering aimlessly for a long time, but maybe he’s been put here for a reason — to help Columbus and the others.

Columbus  (Played in the movie by Jesse Eisenberg)is much the same, except that he tracks down his grandma and grandpa (Bubbie and Peepaw) only to find them recently zombiefied. Also, Columbus is trying to deal with his newfound relationship with Wichita, after their first kiss. He has started calling her “Krista,” her real name — but there are some problems, especially after she finds him reading a book about fatherhood. He tries to organize a romantic scavenger hunt for her in the IKEA they’re camping out in, but it goes kind of horribly.

Wichita  (Played in the movie by Emma Stone) is still trying to look after Little Rock, trying to teach her math with problems about someone stealing from a liquor store and jumping on a train going 42 miles per hour, with a cop chasing in a car going 88 miles per hour. We also learn a lot more about Wichita’s backstory, including how she ran away from her father after he had her stealing people’s Christmas presents — and later, she found out she had a sister who was also being a grifter with her dad.

Little Rock  (Played in the movie by Abigail Breslin)seems actually kind of excited about meeting Columbus’ grandparents, before they turn out to be zombies. And she shares some of her own backstory, about how her dad parked her at a school while he went off grifting on his own — and then yanked her out of school right before a dance that she was looking forward to.

Fred and Ainsley (new characters) are two office workers at the start of the zombie apocalypse, obliviously complaining about problems with their iPhones and getting the wrong order at Starbucks, which they admit are “first world problems” with a hashtag — while people are being disembowled just outside the window they’re not facing. Tallahassee shows up to bring them their lunch orders, wearing a green polo shirt.

If they can capture the magic and fun of the movie then this could be a winner and the natural relaxant after the trauma of The Walking Dead each week…

Call us quietly optimistic about this one, even though there’s no word on when, or if, it’ll even happen…

UPDATE

Now Sony and Amazon are reportedly in talks to bring the television series to our screens.

Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are expected to return to as writers/producers. Interestingly enough Zombieland began as a proposal for a television series but SyFy turned it down so the guys turned it into a movie script instead. The movie struck gold with Woody Harrelson as Twinkie loving Tallahasse, the tough Bill Murray worshipping guy with a tragic secret and Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus, a man of many rules, has become a fan favourite and may well be the perfect opposite for the grim filled Walking Dead. Question is though with the collapse of the Twinkie what will Tallahasse crave in the series? Hopefully we won’t have too long to wait before we find out.