The Walking Dead Creator Recommends Zombieland: Double Tap

Zombieland: Double Tap is in theaters right now, and fans of the original are enjoying their trip back to that universe. Someone who knows something about a zombie story is The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, and he had some very strong praise for the film on Twitter. It’s been ten years since the original came to the big screen and Kirkman is much like those original fans in that his world has changed a ton since that initial run. The Walking Dead hadn’t even come out yet when that film was in theaters and now the long-running TV series has become a staple on screens all across the country and around the world. But, Kirkman was all too delighted to revisit Ruben Fleischer’s madcap adventure.

The Walking Dead creator wrote on Twitter, “THOROUGHLY enjoyed my return trip to Zombieland Highly Recommended! Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick really know how to sequel! Bring on Deadpool 3!!!!” Reese actually responded below the tweet and thanked him for the praise and noted that the words meant a lot coming from one of the biggest voices in the zombie genre. Kirkman then complimented him on a bit about Uber in the new film that we won’t spoil here.

Comicbook.com’s Brandon Davis loved the film and reviewed it for the site. (You can read that right here.) Fleischer talked to us about how big of an influence The Walking Dead was on the series. In fact, a reference to the series made its way into the new film as Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus is reading issue #27 in the early portions of the movie. Funny enough, that issue is from 2006, three years before the zombie apocalypse hit this universe. The director sounded overjoyed about being able to include this subtle nod.

“Well, it’s funny because I actually read a ton of The Walking Dead prior to making Zombieland because it was one of the best examples of survivors living in a zombie post-apocalypse,” Fleischer previously told Comicbook.com. “I like the nod in that respect because I was actually reading it at that time to inform this movie. But, yeah, it felt like there had to be some acknowledgments given how it’s such a juggernaut of a show and definitely the most significant zombie property out there.”
As for the book specifically, it basically just fit the parameters of Zombieland’s mythology and Fleischer liked the look of it. “I just loved that cover,” Fleischer said. “I thought it was really, really cool and so it was a good one to feature.”

One of the most fun moments in the first Zombieland concerned that Bill Murray cameo. But, the sequel almost had another nod to The Walking Dead.

“Emma [Stone] actually pitched that at one point during the development of the script,” Fleischer told the site. “She thought it’d be funny if, as they were traveling through the post-apocalyptic landscape, they happen across some of the members of The Walking Dead and just in passing, which I think would’ve been really funny. Given that they shoot in Atlanta, as did we, it felt like it would have been not too hard to achieve, but it was just a hair to meta, winky wink, as to break the reality of our movie. But I always thought that would’ve been a funny scene, and I know fans would have appreciated it.”