You're listening to the survival podcast for zombie nerds everywhere. is zombies ate my podcast hello and welcome to zombies ate my podcast i'm your host ryan murphy and joining me as always is the busy zombie lord lou page how's it going lou world war z sir oh i thought there was more Nope. Okay. That's all I have to say. That's all I have to say. World War Z. We'll talk about that movie. That's our topic this week, but I want to get ahead of it. Like I was waiting.
At the end of the film, and maybe I missed it, but I was waiting at the end of the film when he was doing the whole diary thing, which is sort of like a call to the book. I was waiting for him to say, and now the battle isn't over. but the world war z has begun and he didn't say it and i was like that's some solid like you know good on you guys for for holding back there because you could have done it i have some thoughts when we get to that but
You know, I have some thoughts. I know. Yeah. You said that. I'm trying to not jump the gun and get right into our main topic because I know we have news, but I'm just like, thoughts. We do have news and we will get to it right now. has completely devastated over 150 of the world's major regions and is spreading rapidly.
All right. Well, this is a bit of a follow up. We'd covered this as like a sort of rumor, but there's more to be reported here with Zach Crager to tackle Resident Evil reboot. We knew that. That would have been rumored. Now it's kind of confirmed. But what I didn't realize is that it is it has ignited a bidding war. which is kind of crazy i know it's the combination of the director you know coming off of like barbarian and that was really well received um
But like Resident Evil to me, like that last one didn't necessarily light the world on fire. We've talked about that and the reasons we think that's the case. I think that Resident Evil is a hot property in games. They always do. a lot of money they're always very successful uh i i know capcom is considered triple a but i've always kind of considered them like the lowest end of triple a and that's why i love them you know they're very japanese that's why i like them and
Krieger's known for doing some weird and interesting stuff, and he's also known for being a comedic writer and actor. So... There's some goofy stuff in Resident Evil. If somebody was going to tackle it and throw in some gags or... goofs that would be like throw-ins to the video game like or nods i think somebody like him might be better suited than what we've got in the past um and my hope is we don't get a ham-fisted
combination like we did with the last movie. As much as I liked the last movie and enjoyed the last movie, it felt like they tried to compress games 1, 2, and 3 all in one movie. And... I feel like they would be better suited to just have somebody tackle. part of one of the games and make a movie about it. And I feel like he's more liable to do that. I think we're more liable to get something creative and interesting from him than what we've got in the past, especially now that...
What's his name? Paul W.S. Anderson is not involved. Yeah, he's busy with, I don't even know what he's doing. He just makes crap. Okay. Well, yeah, that's that's what his IMDb says anyway. Honestly, honestly, I think there's three movies, maybe four in his entire like. catalog of directing films where i'm like i like that movie like i love event horizon i think that's probably the best thing he's ever done right yeah his uh so upcoming so his last one was monster hunter in 2020
It takes an America did well. European is from my understanding. Oh, that's writer. Nevermind. Director, the house of the dead. That's what he's doing next. We covered that. I should have remembered that. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So, okay. Yeah. Okay. If anybody was going to do house of the dead, there's really not much there. It might as well just be more resident evil movie. So, I mean, okay. He's going to just, he's going to just.
Cast his wife in it and shoot more stuff with her as a new character. Go for it, man. Whatever you want. Yeah. Her name will be... It won't be Alice, but it'll be something along those lines. It'll be Chalice. It'll be Angela. Angela, sure. Well, I mean, for this Resident Evil reboot, they also are talking about it being closer to the video game roots, which is interesting because I felt like the last one did that. The last one did it, but it was also shot.
And post and production was done during the pandemic. I think that's what hurt it is. I think that it didn't get good marketing. I don't think it got. A lot of money thrown at it. I think it was. It was on the lower end of. What we consider a budgeted movie. So I think that. With someone like him being in charge, they were liable to get a bigger budget this time, which might be the thing that makes it work. Yeah, I don't know. It's like I hope that.
It sounds like they've got the proper building blocks, and I agree. It felt like they tried to rush the last one, and it suffered because they were shooting it. During the pandemic and now that everything's opened up. Some of the casting, a lot of people didn't like the casting with the last one. There were three or four roles where people were like, really? Yeah. That's who you're going to put? Yeah.
I mean, Wesker was I like I like all the actors, but you're right. Like some of the some of the casting was a bit off and the choice to like kind of combine Resident Evil one and two didn't really. but if they were to combine like two and three, that would probably would have been a better approach. Okay. Okay. So here's my thing. Anytime I bring up that resident evil movie and it's somebody who is a resident evil fan, the immediate gripe is.
They made Leon dumb. I don't like the movie. And so I think that if they had made Leon not goofy and not a comedic relief and it just made him closer to his character in the game. uh i think the movie would have done well i think a lot of people saw the way he was handled as a character and went screw this if you think about it he is more popular than the other characters because he's been in more games than the other characters yeah
I remember the Leon chat being like, I got it. Like they lean too into like rookie cop day one, like a goofball. And, um, Having played Resident Evil 2, there's a bit of that, but not to the extent that they showed in the movie. Yeah, exactly. I get that. But we'll continue to cover it. Hopefully, now it enters the realm of we wait for there to be a trailer. There isn't even casting at this stage, so we'll have to wait a little bit.
I think that news will come soon. If there's a bidding war for this, I think the casting is going to come quick before the end of the year. Oh, yes. Yeah, I think they're going to move quick on this. I think we'll be filming before the end of the year. Oh, cool. That would be nice. Let's speaking of stuff that's coming pretty soon. We've got the last of us part two, or I guess the last of us season two.
Um, there's a, there's an article here on EW, which is an exclusive and it, and it talks a lot interviewing Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin about season two. And talking about how, yes, they're going to continue to make changes to adapt the source material. Some small adjustments, sometimes bigger adjustments. And they've been having these chats since before.
Game two even came out. So, so 2020. So like, it's an interesting, it's an interesting read. And, and honestly, like if you're, if you're looking for every little piece of morsel of information. about this upcoming season. Like it's a great sort of dive into this like interview style and, and talking about Abby, the new main character that's coming in and the characters that surround her.
where Joel and Ellie stand going into season two and what's happening there. But I'm really interested to see like these changes they're talking about having played part two. I really liked and appreciated the changes they made in the first season from part one. I don't think, and this isn't a spoiler for folks who have played it or for folks who haven't played the second game.
I don't think they're going to make the big changes that people on the Internet wanted them to make when part two came out and leaked and all that. And people were up in arms. We're not going to say that here, because, again, I think that's going to.
That's still going to be the case. Uh, but I mean, it'll be interesting. It depends on the story they're trying to tell, you know, like, like Lou, like you haven't played the first game, the second game, but I, I know you in spoilers, you probably know.
a majority of what takes place in that second game, especially like the first beats, right? I know when it first came out, I read all about it. I knew everything was going on. It's been a few years, so I've forgotten bits and pieces, but I know the basics. Yeah. So what do you think about this, about this article about them saying they're going to be making changes, but like the title of the article says, you know, Last of Us season two packs quite a wallop. Like they're, they're not like.
Shying away from the traumatic stuff that was displayed in season one. I think there's going to be some traumatic stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if they pull the punches a little bit and maybe not go as hard. Yeah, maybe. I mean. Some of the like the reaction to season one was just so positive. And and that was in line with when the game came out the first time around.
I do hope they're not changing the story just based on internet reaction. I don't think they will. Druckmann's not the kind of guy that would do that. Yeah, I don't want them to. I want them to create not only an entertaining show, but something that they feel is their own. Because that's what we got with season one. That was not a design by internet committee. That was Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin's.
vision for the last of us television show. My guess is, is that it's been a few years now since they designed it. and wrote the original game, and now it's coming to TV, and much like they edited and made changes to the first season from the first game, my guess is that they're going to approach it in a very similar fashion, where...
They've now had time to think about the way certain things happened in the game. And they can either move point A to here, make this happen sooner, make this happen later. Maybe this didn't work as much as we thought in the game, or maybe something worked because you as the player inter caused the thing to happen. And as a watcher, it might not be.
be as meaningful so they're going to make it change the way something unfolds but it still unfolds the same way I think there's things they could do where it doesn't ruin the story but they could make changes they did it with the first season
i think it's in good hands honestly so i'm not really i'm not sweating whatever they want to change yeah yeah they talk about they also talk about the reaction to the last of us part two and that leak and and how it was very traumatic for the team but they they say you know What did they say? Basically, what stuck out to me is like our brand is that we pander to no one. We do what's best for the story and whatever happens, happens. So like that to me tells me like this is going to be a very.
Faithful adaptation. Honestly, Druckmann is so opinionated about stuff and creating stories. I'm not. At no point am I thinking he is going to pander to the internet audience. I think he's been quoted as basically saying, if you don't like my games, go pound sand or something like that. Somebody gave him flack about something to do with this show or the games or something to do with... It might even have been about...
and he basically told them to go F themselves. If you don't like it, I do what I want. kind of attitude and so i'm pretty sure that that he if he made changes it's changes he wants to make he's not he's not kowtowing to even hbo if he doesn't have to yeah well i i mean
Hey, as a creative, you got to kind of respect that. Like this is his show. It wouldn't exist without him. Although there is a huge team at Sony that worked on these, these videos. And it's not just Druckmann at the helm. There was. Bruce Straley, I think is the guy's name, co-created it. But he was lead writer, I believe, on both games. Yeah, he was definitely a creative lead. I think Bruce did more of the...
the design sort of implements of like the video game itself, the game design, but yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Obviously we'll reserve judgment until we actually see the show and we will be covering it. As soon as it hits in April 2025. something we won't have in April 2025, Lou, although you'll probably know your reaction is going to be, I thought this was already shut down, but Resident Evil Reverse is going to be shutting down in March. How do you feel about that?
I can delete it off of my Steam page now. You still have it installed? No, no. Steam keeps a record of every game you've ever installed or owned. And this is listed in my ownership. And it will let you remove games if they're no longer viable or playable. or we'll let you leave them there so you can look at them nostalgically. And every time something like this happens, I go, nope, I don't care about this anymore. Goodbye. There was a...
There was like a dead Island sort of top down strategy game that I had access to. And I still have it in my like steam gift library. I have, I have probably at some point 20 games that have been removed. uh from having online services so they're not even playable anymore and i just mark them as hidden games so that they don't show up in my in my primary feed anymore
Nice. Well, if you're looking to celebrate, well, not celebrate the shutdown, but if you're looking to have some other Resident Evil fun alongside that note, it's kind of funny because I think... Resident Evil Reverse was sort of a Dead by Daylight-esque game. But Dead by Daylight itself is hosting a 2v8 Resident Evil mode from February 10th to the 25th. There's a cute little trailer that's out there featuring both Wesker and Nemesis as the killers and zombie mode has zombies in it. And yeah.
There's a lot of cool stuff in Dead by Daylight that is Resident Evil themed. But I know, Lou, you have not played it, right? You've not touched Dead by Daylight?
I have Dead by Daylight. I have played the original versions of Dead by Daylight. I think I even own the original Resident Evil Dead by Daylight expansion pack, and I think I played it twice. I suck at that game. I'm absolutely... dog shit at it so because of that i don't play it yeah i'm also bad at it i play it with friends who are much better at it but then they they bring in like a lot of the
Heavy competition that usually goes for the weak link almost right away. Yeah. So if you're looking for some Resident Evil video game fun while you wait for the next Resident Evil mainline franchise entry. uh you have a couple months left of reverse and a cool new mode in dead by daylight happening uh right can i remember can i i'm gonna ask this sure so there's been like three of these resident evil like multiplayer games
I'm trying to remember which one Revers is. I think is Revers... Revers is the village one, right? Is it the... Is it? Okay. There's another one, though. You're not wrong, because it was with Resident Evil 3. Yeah, there was one with Resident Evil 3. And I want to say there was another one that came with two.
yeah so reverse is Resident Evil Village let's see what Resident Evil 3 brings up I don't think Resident Evil 2 had it I think Resident Evil 3 had it because it was like a it was a smaller game and they wanted to kind of like bundle It's not Resident Evil Resistance. And it got dropped, too, as fast as it could be, as far as I remember. No, it was Resistance. Yeah, and that's gone now, too, isn't it?
No, it's still active. Mostly negative for all reviews. I played it for 0.2 hours. Oh, never mind. It is unlisted. And will not appear in search, which is weird because I searched in Steam, probably because I own it. Yeah, I have it, too. And I don't think it's playable anymore. So I was wrong. Resistance was the Dead by Daylight clone. Reverse was maybe a hero shooter of some kind. Doesn't matter. Don't play these games. Don't do it.
I'm on the page because I know it's delisted and it does label itself as playable on Steam Deck. And I'm like, why? Who tested this? Steam. Evidently. I don't know what they're doing over there, but they've got time to test defunct games on their platform. Let's look at this. So this is weird. And this was back when we didn't have a lot of news and I kind of threw it in here, but I did watch this trailer.
Did you watch it? I did. Okay, good. So you're going to know what I'm about to talk about here. So there's a new show coming to Apple TV Plus called The Studio, which features Seth Rogen. as a studio exec and he's trying to sell his movie. And that's sort of like, it's a, it's a meta commentary on Hollywood studios and all that. But the movie in the show is called D'Apocalypse. And. It's about zombies with explosive diarrhea. And honestly, I didn't realize what...
Like my brain didn't go immediately to what they showed in the trailer as like the implications of a zombie having explosive diarrhea. And I was like, Ooh, that's not great. So. I did. Ryan sent me this link. And when I clicked on it, I didn't realize it was a show for the studio. I was I thought it was a real movie at first. And I was like, all right, Johnny Knoxville.
The kid from the Hunger Games. Cool. I'm in. I'm in. What's going on? And then the explosive story, I went, oh, this is a parody of some kind. This is not real. Somebody's messing with me. And then it cuts to the studio execs as the actual show. And I went, okay. All right. All right. Okay. I get why this is here. Cool. So it's a small thing. I don't know how big a part it'll play in the show, but I love old Johnny Knoxville. He was in a show that got canceled. I think it was called Reboot.
Yeah, on Hulu. Yeah, it was really good. And it was really unfortunate that it got canceled because I wanted more of it. I believe that got canceled and it had more to do with pandemic issues than it did with. actual people not watching it yeah no i agree i think it was uh related to pandemic uh it being shot during the pandemic um but yeah like it's it's a it's a fun little trailer i mean it is
It is graphic in the sense that, you know, it gave me a good chuckle and the chuckle was enough that I would like, all right, if I get Apple TV, I might tune in for this just because of this. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, check that out. Uh, the apocalypse official trailer. And one more story here. This one comes from our Discord. Bit.ly slash Zamp Discord. The Monroeville Mall from George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead has been purchased by Walmart.
And I don't think it's going to be a Walmart. No. My understanding is there's something like 100-plus stores in that mall. I've never been, but I understand it is quite a large mall. I don't think they're going to demolish a mall and put a Walmart in there. And I think the town already has a Walmart. So I think this is just a property buyout from Walmart. Yeah.
The question is, is people are left questioning whether or not Walmart will let, there's a museum dedicated to the movie in the mall. People are questioning whether or not Walmart will get rid of that. I don't think they will. Have you seen some of the crap that Walmart puts on shelves for movies? Some of the low budget crap that they sell. I don't think they're going to care that there's a Romero.
thing in their mall. In fact, Walmart's liable to try and make it some kind of tax write-off that they have a museum. Maybe. That's one way to look at it. I think it's it's always I don't know what kind of protections they have in the States, but I know here locally, like this building probably would have been considered a historic building.
That's what I was going to say. It could also be considered a historical landmark, and if Walmart owns it, they might get some kind of subsidy for owning it. Walmart has a lot of lawyers, and they'll pull a lot of strings if they think it will save them money. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of, so there's some weirdness when it comes to like historical landmarks and sometimes developers will buy them up and find.
loopholes where it's like oh well technically the building that was deemed historic is the foundation and we left the foundation intact or You know, we renovated the inside and out. So it like it appears to be the same building, but really is just not. There's been a bunch of people online freaking out about this, thinking that Walmart's going to.
demo the whole mall oh yeah i don't i don't think that's gonna happen um i i don't i i think if walmart does something like that it'll be a decade down the route down the line if they can't find a way to make money off of this But the other thing, too, is I don't know if it's this article, but I read another article somewhere where it said the company that owned the mall bought the mall like 10 or 15 years ago.
And they paid something upwards of like a hundred plus million dollars for the mall. Like they paid some kind of crazy amount of money where I was like, really? They paid that much for a mall? walmart bought it for like 20 million like like like walmart bought it for like a tenth of what the company that bought it originally paid so so
Clearly, they were trying to clear house of property and Walmart bought something for pennies on the dollar. So good luck to the Dawn of the Dead mall. Sounds like you're going to need it, especially with Walmart as your. your leaseholders. So let's head into our main topic, which we spoke to at the top of the show, but yeah, let's, let's discuss it.
We are talking about World War Z, which is an adaptation of the World War Z book by Max Brooks. A lot of talk around World War Z, which released in 2013, is that... This is very tangentially related to the book and that the book takes place after. technically what the events you see in this movie because it's after the zombies have died. It's been years since I read the book. I think I have a copy on my bookshelf behind me somewhere. But...
My understanding or remembrance of the book is it's like a documentarian documenting the aftermath of what happened and people telling their stories about how they survived the zombie apocalypse. Yeah. And along the way, talking about, I think, how they cured it or learned to live with it. And I know that this movie got a lot of flack from fans of the book when it came out because a lot of fans of the book were like, this isn't what we wanted.
I think I was in that camp when this first came out. It should also be said that this came out when we were first beginning this show. So this is one of our first topics that we tackled over 10 years ago. And I don't think we covered it as a film then. We basically talked about it in the news and that it was a thing.
And I will say this. I've always given this movie flack. I think this is my third or fourth time watching it. I watched it when it first came out. And then I think I saw it like a few years later. And then I think I watched it like five or six years ago, but it was more like I was half watching it the last time. This time I sat and actually like watched it beat for beat the whole time.
I have a much bigger TV than I did the first couple times I saw this. And there was a ton of stuff I noticed this time around that I will say this. I don't have the tie to the book that I used to. So watching this as just a film, I very much enjoyed this way more than I have in the past. Literally was like, wow, I think I could watch this again. I enjoyed it. What about you? Yeah, I'm going to...
Admit, I never read the book. It's always been on my list to do. It's up there in terms of what book I need to read. It is interesting that Max Brooks, after this, went on to write a Minecraft book. which my son is reading right now, who's nine. And he is over the moon about Minecraft. And I'm like, I said to Ashley, like, when you go to the library, just find all the Minecraft books. And I had mentioned to Caden, like, hey, like.
There's a book by Max Brooks who wrote a book that I really loved, which is not World War Z, but De-Evolution, which is his follow-up, which is a similar tale of like a recounting of what happened. specific event and uh but the minecraft book he actually you know wrote for his for his son plays minecraft um right that only being said i i think when this movie came out
I was like just drinking from the fire hose with the show and zombie content. And we were more focused on what came before, not necessarily what was coming. in the moment. Plus we were doing walking dead like every week. And I just recall like you guys had seen it and it's like, it's nothing like the book, read the book first, read the book first. And it kind of pushed the movie to the side of it, you know? Yeah. Um,
But I did watch it then, and I thought, oh, that was okay. I thought it was too action-y, but having watched it now, I think I appreciate the different... you know types of zombie films and I also can appreciate when a film is like really nailing a feeling Which in this movie was stress. Very stressful movie. It's stressful and it's non, like I said, I've seen this a couple times before. I forgot how nonstop this movie is. Yeah. Like.
Like in the beginning, the first five minutes or so, it's a little slow and it's like introducing them to the characters. But once they get into the city and you realize that stuff is going on, it like. doesn't stop yeah i also don't know how people watch this during the pandemic that would have been very tough to do uh i was even struggling watching it this week i was like oh too soon like just the way they portray panic on the streets which uh was it's just intense like
people's reaction to what's going on and these are fast moving zombies it's a fast reaction to being bit like it's almost you are screwed if you are not lucky and The fact that our main character, as well as his entire family, make it out of this movie alive is it just comes down to luck. You know, and our main character. So we didn't do an overview, but essentially the way this movie set up is that former United Nations employee, Jerry Lane.
traverses the world in a race against time to stop a zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatens to destroy humanity itself. Former U.N. employee. He's a former U.N. investigator. Sure. Yes. So calling him an employee is like, yeah, sure. What was he, a soldier? This is from INDB, right? I know. I know. I know. It's pretty nondescript.
Very nondescript. And I couldn't remember what his role was from the last couple of times I watched this. And when they call him a UN investigator. And then they have a conversation. He has a conversation with the general. And I was like, yeah, he's an investigator. Cool. Whatever. I know what the UN investigators investigate war crimes and say. And then they list some of the things that his character was supposed to be involved with. And you're like, oh.
This guy has seen stuff. Okay. He knows how to handle himself. This is why he's taking guys out and doing stuff. Yeah. Yeah. No, he, well, he knows how to handle himself, but you heard in that intro clip, he doesn't know how to put his phone on vibrate. Uh, which there's some surprising humor, uh, to this, to this, uh, to this movie. And you got that the intro clip, but there was one other clip that I got that was, I thought pretty funny. They are not afraid to use the Z word.
In this movie. No. So listen to this. You all read the same email I did. It said zombies. I love how everyone just jumps down his throat. And then like by the end of the film, it's like, Oh yeah, no, this is, these are zombies. Like this is, this is what's happening. And it's very like close to sort of the idea that we saw in 28 Days Later, where it's more of like a rabies type infection where you are bit and you are instantly sort of.
turned. Um, although like in the split second, if you cut off the bite point, they approved that that works. Uh, they saved one of the, one of the military folks who gets bit on the hand.
But yeah, like it's a very intense film. I can kind of see where they trying to basically take the book and do a movie about what they're talking about in the book, not necessarily doing a movie about the book. So. In the sense that if the character in the book that's interviewing these folks, you could see that person interviewing Jerry Lane and having that be a part of the book.
this character running around the world trying to figure out what's going on dealing with different investigation points and then finally discovering the Not the cure, but the camouflage, which we'll come back to. But I can kind of see how those pieces fit together and then equal the pressures of making a multi-million dollar budget film. In that era of 2013, they kind of had to make this movie for it to make its budget back, right? Does that make sense? Yeah.
I could be wrong. And this movie was a mess to make, from my understanding. I think some of it is not really talked about, but I remember when this was being made, there was reshoots, there was... stuff that was scrapped there was stuff that was done and i like i said it was so different from the books i really didn't follow much of that back in the day because i didn't really care i was like eh i'll watch it when it comes out but i'm not i'm not um
I'm not really like sweating it. And one of the things that jumped out to me immediately in the very beginning of the movie is. Matthew Fox is a paratrooper that grabs Brad Pitt and his family and pulls them onto a helicopter and then shoots a bunch of zombies. And I went, that was Matthew Fox. And then you never see him again.
As I watched the movie, there was a couple of situations like that. Like there's a kid that he tells to keep a lookout for his daughters while they're on board the ship. And you see the kid then. And then you see the kid at the end of the movie, but you don't know his name. They never tell you his name. They never identify him. You don't know why he's looking out for them. You don't know if he's, you don't know nothing.
And they treat him like he's a main character. Like Brad Pitt hugs the kid when he gets there at the end of the movie. And I'm like, these characters feel like there's something cut from this movie. Apparently, a bunch of that stuff has to do with rewrites and reshoots. And according to what I read, the original plot line from Matthew Fox's character was he was going to rescue Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt was going to go.
And he wasn't going to end up in Korea where he ends up in the beginning of the movie. He was going to end up in Russia or something like that. Someplace in Asia on the other side. Europe-Asia line instead. And Matthew Fox's character was going to basically become a villain who was looking out for Brad Pitt's family but holding the wife.
hostage. Like if you don't do as I say, I'm going to make sure your family doesn't survive. And that the end of the movie was going to basically be Brad Pitt with a SEAL team.
on the way to Nova Scotia to rescue... I don't even think it was supposed to be Nova Scotia. I think it was supposed to be Greenland. It was going to be him and a SEAL team on their way to... uh Greenland to rescue his family and that was going to be the way the movie ended so that they could bring the sequel and in the sequel the the humans were going to be the villain and apparently a bunch of that stuff was shot and I think
Dailies were seen by executives and executives were like, what is this crap? And the whole movie was rewritten at that point. And his character was scrapped. There was a couple of side characters that were scrapped. And they reshot a whole bunch of stuff. And that's where the plot line with Korea was brought in and a couple of other things were brought in. This movie cost way more. I think it was way over budget, if I remember right.
It made back its money, which was great, but I think that it cost – they were so worried that a sequel wouldn't do well because this was on the verge of not doing well. It was too much of a risk, and it was such a nightmare to make that they scrapped it. any sequels it was originally supposed to be a trilogy yeah before i've heard that before uh did you know that
The sequel was announced shortly after this first this one came out, but wasn't officially canceled until 2019, which, you know, wasn't that long ago. So we I was I was. When I was watching it and thinking about it, I was like, oh, maybe we'll get a 28 days, 28 years later approach where we get we get a sequel like 10, you know, 15 years later. But it sounds like that is.
Not the case. And I mean, the way the movie ends, you could kind of like and then read the book, you know, like. Yeah. I mean, I thought if I like I said, it's been years since I saw this movie. And I thought it ended with them being cured, not necessarily like they they bought themselves time. And I was like, OK, cool. But that's going to just been the end of the movie.
Like, all they had to do was change a few of the dialogue posts and dialogue lines where it says, yeah, we're now vaccinated so we could take out the rest of the zombies and they leave us alone. You know what I mean? Like that's all they had to say. It was like, it would be like, oh, okay. Pandemic over. Yeah. I, I think there's, there's also some silly stuff that is thrown in and you're kind of like, what? There's a great.
Sort of speech that the supposed hero of humanity is the guy who knows everything about viruses and spotting, you know, weaknesses in finding a cure. He gives this great speech about how Mother Nature is a serial killer, but she can't help but leave little crumbs, and the point is to find the crumbs. Ten minutes later, the guy doesn't follow advice, panics, slips on. Slips on the plane. The platform. Platform, yeah. Thank you. And he shoots himself. Dead. In the head.
Yeah. And I had to like I was like, oh, I forgot how quickly that happened. And again, because, you know, the characters know that every second counts and and whatnot, like. Brad Pitt does a really good job of playing Jerry Lane and that he he is emotive. He gets his point across, but he doesn't dwell like there isn't this like dwelling.
that the character does like i think it's really well set up where it is believable that this character knows what they're doing but can still show humanity in these moments uh like And basically, he says to the guy, like, don't, you know, just stay with me. Don't panic. It's going to be fine. These guys are here to protect you. Don't put yourself in danger. And there's a conversation after it happens. And they're like, what happened to him? He's like.
He didn't listen. He slipped and he's dead. You know, like, we have to move on. As soon as he pulls the gun from the hole, so you're like, what are you doing? Yeah. You shouldn't be doing that until the very end. You're not a soldier. Sure, keep your hand on the gun, on your hip. in case you need to pull it, but let them do their jobs. And he even says, keep your finger off the trigger, right? Like, it's one of those moments that I think is...
I know why they do it. Like they set it up. He gives the speech. It inspires, you know, Jerry Lane to like have these have these thoughts of like, oh. uh look for the crumbs and and you get that through the film and he has the big epiphany at the end but i think it's also to like get him out of the way so that jerry lane is the main character and isn't like babysitting the whole movie
Yeah. And the other thing, too, is I like how they moved on from it. The guy gets shot and the soldier goes, weren't we supposed to protect him or something along those lines? And Brad Pitt's like. time to move on we gotta go we like like in other words mission continues let's go and it's like and you're like it's not cold but it's like we can't let this slow us down we gotta keep going well humanity's at stake right yeah
the entire world is at war. And you immediately realize that he knows what needs to be done and he's trying to figure out where it began so he can find somebody who has answers. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the other thing is like, this is a movie that is very worldwide. It takes place at a variety of locations. Although I'll say while the film. talks about being in these locations, you really only get to experience two, America and Israel.
When they go to South Korea, it's like it's a base. It's nothing. It's a building and like a rainy tarmac. It's a U.S. military base in South Korea that they land at. Yeah, yeah. And it's all, for the most part, Americans, right? And you can't see anything. But there was another moment where I think it was... I think it was in South Korea where they're talking to the ex-CIA guy who was trying to sell weapons to the North. And he has no teeth. Yeah, he has no teeth. And gosh, that was gross.
I couldn't, I just like, there's some weird stuff. And I think like when you talk about this subplot that was cut, that character probably had a closer tie, but they tried to like tie it into like the cure. I don't believe his character was in the original script. The whole South Korea thing was changed and added in the reshoots.
And the reason I believe it's there is if I remember correctly, there's a part of the book where they're talking about people that survived and somebody tells the story about, I think one of the characters. was Japanese or Korean, and tells a story about how in North Korea, the North Koreans pulled all their teeth so they couldn't bite each other, and that's how they survived.
the the zombie apocalypse they realized that if they didn't have teeth so they couldn't bite each other they couldn't infect each other oh so it's like a book reference it's a book reference and so When he tells you that he doesn't have any teeth, he tells you it's because he was in North Korea and they made him remove all his teeth. Because it was the only way you got in and out of the country. And I mean...
One could also state that having no teeth kind of fits the category of not being a suitable host for the virus, right? Yes. Let's talk about that. near the end of the film while everything's going to shit and brad pitt like nathan drakes it and survives a crashing plane uh we'll ignore that for a bit but uh he kind of
He kind of figures out that the cure is a camouflage and it basically allows, he notices several times where people like, oh, this guy was just lucky. He was standing amongst these eight people that got killed and they didn't even bother him. And it had to do with the fact that these folks were not a great, not a good host for the virus. So essentially, if he was able to infect himself with which he shoots himself with a virus.
at the at the the who station or whatever and that gives them the camouflage to basically walk right past the The zombies. There's even a fun scene where he drinks a Pepsi and then like lets the machine go. And I thought that was really cool. But I forgot about that scene. And I remember the big controversy when this came out, because...
Peter Capaldi is labeled as the WHO Doctor. And literally the thing that Peter Capaldi did after this movie was filmed was he became Doctor Who for about three seasons. Yeah. Hey. I mean, they actually land, I think it's Cardiff. It's Scotland, right? So he's, I believe he's Scottish, right? Yes. If I'm making a mistake there, yeah, okay, he's Scottish. So, I mean, it fits.
I, I really enjoy, I like that, that, um, that who, you know, world health organization, like sort of seen where they're all in the hospital. I thought that was really good. It's good. It's funny though. It's the part where the movie slows down. Yes. Again. Yeah. The whole movie is nonstop. Like he goes to, he goes to. to South Korea. First, it's the city. I think it's supposed to be Philadelphia. It's nonstop. They get rescued. They end up on the boat. It's like...
Five minutes of dialogue before he's got to get back on a plane and he goes to South Korea. They land in South Korea and it's like nonstop there. He talks to David Morris, the CIA guy for. two minutes they get they're gonna get back on the plane it's non-stop action they land in israel they have like two he has like a five minute conversation with the guy and next thing you know it's non-stop being chased by zombies again
They get on another plane. Then the plane gets hosted by, attacked by, there's a zombie on the plane. And then they crash. And after they crash, the movie slows down. Like.
to like almost like a grinding hall it's almost like whoa where is this going and then they end up at the who building and it's tense and it becomes more of a horror movie at that point he's got to get from point a to point b and there's zombies in the way and they're not running and gunning through everything right like they were the rest of the movie and it becomes like an actual horror movie for about 20 minutes. Yeah. It's like a corridor.
horror film where like it's very tight spaces and these zombies are very dangerous and they are stealthing through this office space and trying to get the the most deadliest diseases to create a camouflage and you know surprise surprise they are It's in a wing infected with zombies. And I appreciated that it slowed down because it...
Like it needed to slow down, but it's it doesn't follow the normal trajectory of an action film. And I can see why people might have thought, oh, this is why it's kind of anticlimactic because. The normal trajectory of an action film is that it's slow start, go, go, go, go, go, big finale credits. This is slow start, go, go, go, go, go. And then like it just slows down and you get a happy ending, you know, or a hopeful ending. Yeah. And in order to have that, it wasn't going to be.
everybody get your guns and go fight the zombies. Like you telling me like, Oh, the original ending was a big, you know, bombastic finale, but it wasn't about zombies. It was about people. Um, I think that's one thing that this movie had that was, that was like kind of anti walking dead at the time is that there, there weren't bad people being portrayed. No, it was, it was, it was, it was nonstop. We've got to figure out a way to survive.
like yeah people were united and i think that's what i liked about this movie this this time watching it is i'm so jaded from our decade of watching walking dead yeah i was like wait nobody in this is a jerk The only person who kind of is a jerk at first is when he first gets woken up in the WHO laboratory. The guy that comes in is asking him questions, and he's like, pick up the phone, dial the number.
And you're going to talk to a guy and he'll explain. Yeah, but it's calm, you know? It's calm. And then they talk to the guy and he's like, oh. yeah, okay, uncuff him. And you're like, if this was Walking Dead, it'd still have been 20 more minutes of fighting and yelling. And I was like, I think that's what I like about this movie. Yeah, I agree. The zombies are the villains. That is it. Yeah. That makes to me a superior zombie film that the zombies are the bad guys. And.
the humanity triumphs look i'm not saying like everybody every human in this movie was good there are there are definitely moments where humans are are doing you know less than good things making kind of silly choices but i think at the end of the day like uh it was very hopeful everybody was looking to save the day you know for humanity and
Yeah. And the fact that it ends with we got our Canada shout out, the safe zone in Nova Scotia, which was nice to see. I forgot about that when I saw it. I was like, oh, it's Nova Scotia. So that's always fun. But yeah, I really enjoyed the revisit. It's a long film. It's about two hours and you kind of feel that, especially near the end. Honestly, I didn't feel it until the end. Honestly, it felt like...
45 minutes and then all of a sudden you hit the who stuff and it slows down and i was like oh whoa how long have we been watching this it's been going on for 90 minutes now holy crap yeah exactly but i mean I'm glad we I'm glad we revisited it because I don't know if we would have if it weren't. I should have mentioned this. This was our extra life film where a coworker of mine went to Netflix search zombies and.
suggested the first one that popped up which was world war z although not on netflix anymore had to i think it's on paramount plus yep i watched it on paramount plus um and i know we talked about the making of it and all the other things I read it both on Wikipedia and I read an article about it as well. One of the reasons why we have not gotten a sequel and sequels were scrapped is apparently they cannot air this movie in China.
in in chinese culture you can't show skeletons and you can't show zombies and you can't show something else and this violates like three of the rules of things you can't show in china and because of that that is one of the reasons why the studio passed on sequel of making sequels is if they couldn't make money in the Asian market, they did not want to make money with it. Yeah. It's a source basically quoted saying like a ban on films featuring zombies or ghosts. Yeah, I know.
I think they've relaxed on skeletons. I can't remember. But there was a big story about how World of Warcraft had a whole expansion of skeletons with Wrath of the Lich King. And that was a huge issue. For that market. In that market, didn't they release it? It was packed. The game was patched so that they weren't skeletons. They were something else. Yeah, they were. Although I thought they were just zombies, but maybe they were just like green.
i think they did something i think they did something else and they called them something else in the in the asian market and that's how they got it to stay there yeah they figured it out uh well Something else we're going to figure out is what is coming up on Zamp. And as we patiently wait for The Last of Us Season 2 launching in April, we have more Extra Life movies to get to with Shaun of the Dead.
28 Days Later, although I will note, we didn't talk about this, but we did talk about the story that 28 Days Later was returning to digital, but we didn't know when. Turns out a few weeks after that story, it arrived. 28 Days Later is actually available to rent as of the end of December of last year. So it has shot up the list in terms of what we're going to watch. Although...
Lou and I, I think we're going to watch the George A. Romero's Resident Evil, a documentary about the failed Resident Evil film that was written and directed by George A. Romero. We're going to do that one next. which is kind of fitting because we just talked about a Resident Evil reboot film. So now we get to go all the way back to their original attempt with George A. Romero. And that one is available to rent on select.
video rental I think it's on Amazon Prime that you can rent it and Apple TV as well so that's our next film followed by two others as we barrel ever closer to the last of us season two arriving in April. So look forward to that. Uh, okay. It's going to do it for this episode. I want to thank the patrons at patreon.com slash zombies ate my podcast. Go there if you want to support the show directly. It really helps pay for hosting and rentals and all that fun stuff.
You can visit our website, zombies8mypodcast.com, for show notes in all our previous episodes. You can send us an email. We may read it on the show, info at zombies8mypodcast.com. Join our Discord at bit.ly slash zampdiscord. It's the best place to connect with fellow listeners as well as Lou and I. This has been Zombies Ate My Podcast, and as always, we close out the show with some fine zombie knowledge from the busy zombie lord himself.
Take it away, Lou. You get it? He was the WHO doctor, and then he became Doctor Who. Doctor Who? Exactly.