Variety reports that Everybody Wants Some!! star Zoey Deutch has signed on to star in the upcoming Zombieland sequel, a follow-up to the acclaimed 2009 zombie comedy.
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Director Ruben Fleischer and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were all put on the map following the success, with Fleischer helming the most recent entry into Sony’s first Spider-Man spinoff Venom, and Rheese and Wernick going on to help bring the Deadpool franchise to life for Fox, and all of them will be returning to the director’s and writers’ chairs for the sequel.
The film will also feature the return of stars Woody Harrelson (Solo: A Star Wars Story), Jesse Eisenberg (Now You See Me), Emma Stone (La La Land) and Abigail Breslin (Scream Queens), which may raise the budget to above $24 million this time, especially given Stone’s Oscar win La La Land, Harrelson’s nomination for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Eisenberg’s nomination for The Social Network.
The original followed four strangers who meet on the road in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and, while initially at each other’s throats, they soon come to bond with each other and form a close-bonded group. Harrelson played the violent cowboy Tallahassee, Eisenberg played geeky Columbus, with Stone and Breslin playing crafty sisters Wichita and Little Rock, all characters named after the locations they are heading to.
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Zombieland came out in 2009 and quickly became one of the most talked-about and acclaimed hits for the zombie genre, with critics and audiences praising it for its intelligent humor, gleeful gore, self-aware nature and the minor ensemble’s fantastic chemistry. The film was also a commercial hit, grossing over $100 million globally off of a $24 million budget, as well as earning over $55 million on home media as of 2015.
The 24-year-old actress got her start a few years ago with the YA films Beautiful Creatures and Vampire Academy, which were relative failures, but broke out in the 2016 comedies Everybody Wants Some!!, Richard Linklater’s spiritual sequel to Boyhood and Dazed and Confused, and Why Him? alongside James Franco (The Disaster Artist) and Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), followed by the 2017 teen drama Before I Fall, which was a modest hit. She was most recently seen in the Netflix romantic comedy Set It Up, which also received very positive reviews from critics and audiences. and will lead the upcoming Ryan Murphy Netflix series The Politician.
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