Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland opens on a world already lost. A strain of mad cow disease has mutated to infect humans, turning them into zombies, and the survivors have learned to keep moving.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Columbus Keeps a List of Rules
Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, a former college student who narrates the film and lives by a strict set of rules. He is traveling from Austin, Texas, toward Columbus, Ohio, to find his parents. Survivors take their city of origin as nicknames, avoid getting attached, and protect themselves.
Columbus runs from what scares him. Tallahassee does not.
Tallahassee Hunts a Twinkie
Woody Harrelson plays Tallahassee, who gives Columbus a ride in an armored Escalade and spends most of the movie hunting for a Twinkie. He despises zombies and enjoys killing and torturing them. He tells Columbus he misses his “puppy named Buck,” killed by zombies.
Harrelson’s Four Conditions
Harrelson took the role on four conditions, two about casting and crew. One required an environmentally conscious set. Another required Fleischer to give up dairy for a week. Fleischer met it and kept a vegetarian diet for 11 months.
The Sisters Steal the Truck
Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin play con-artist sisters Wichita and Little Rock. They steal Tallahassee’s weapons and truck after Little Rock fakes a zombie bite, then take the men hostage at a second trap. The sisters are headed to Pacific Playland in Los Angeles.
| Character | Actor | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Columbus | Jesse Eisenberg | Reach Ohio, find his parents |
| Tallahassee | Woody Harrelson | Find a Twinkie |
| Wichita | Emma Stone | Reach Pacific Playland |
| Little Rock | Abigail Breslin | Reach Pacific Playland |
Bill Murray Disguises Himself as a Zombie
In Hollywood, Tallahassee directs the group to Bill Murray’s house. Murray is uninfected and disguises himself as a zombie to move around the area. He pranks Columbus and Little Rock by pretending to be a zombie — and Columbus accidentally kills him.
The cameo was first written for Patrick Swayze as a zombified dancer, with nods to his career and a recreation of the potter’s wheel scene from Ghost. Swayze was battling pancreatic cancer and too sick to make set; he died in September 2009. Later drafts considered Sylvester Stallone, Joe Pesci, Mark Hamill, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Matthew McConaughey. The actor cast dropped out a week before filming, and Harrelson made calls to land Murray. Harrelson said most of the scene was improvised.
A Pilot Script Becomes a Feature
Reese and Wernick wrote Zombieland in 2005 as a spec script for a television pilot. Fleischer, in his directorial debut, helped develop it into a self-contained feature. Tony Gardner designed the makeup, built mostly from physical prosthetics.
Ranking the film’s best assets:
- Harrelson’s Tallahassee, the engine of every scene he enters.
- The Bill Murray sequence, the film’s sharpest turn.
- Eisenberg’s narration, which carries the rules.
- Stone and Breslin, who make the con work twice.
What the 88 Minutes Deliver
Zombieland runs 88 minutes and never wastes them. It premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2009, and opened in the United States on October 2 through Sony Pictures Releasing. It grossed $102 million worldwide.
The Murray cameo is the piece everyone remembers, but the casting conditions and Fleischer’s 11 months of vegetarianism are trivia. What matters is that the film treats its survivors as people with appetites and grudges, not as fodder. Tallahassee’s Twinkie is the whole joke and the whole point.
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