Franchise Survival Rule #1: Be profitable at the box office. Rule #2: Earn critical acclaim and audience approval. Zombieland played by the rules and found success on both fronts, but the comedy horror franchise has laid dormant ever since the release of Zombieland: Double Tap in 2019, which arrived in theaters 10 years after the original Zombieland outbreak in 2009 – but is the film series officially dead and buried, or is it starting to show signs of life? Director Ruben Fleischer shared a hopeful update on the long-gestating third installment in a recent interview, suggesting that the franchise will live to survive another day after all.
Fleischer, who helmed Zombieland and its decade-later sequel, recently reunited with Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson on Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the third film in the magical heist franchise that started all the way back in 2013, but it sounds like there might be another threequel on the cards in the next few years. The filmmaker addressed the possibility of Zombieland 3 in a recent conversation with Deadline, confirming that conversations had begun about getting the band back together to return to the land of the undead for a third big-screen bonanza (as was always the intention). He told the outlet:
“I’m hoping that we’ll do a Zombieland 3 in 2029. We’re starting to talk about that because [the first] one was 2009, and then we did the second one in 2019, and we kind of left that one all saying, ‘We’ll see you in 10 years.’ That’s coming up now, and so we’re starting to figure that out, so I’m hoping that’ll come together. Then, I’ve got a few things that are raring to go, so we’ll see which one comes first.”
Eisenberg, who plays Columbus, the main protagonist and narrator of the first two movies, recently cast some doubt over whether Zombieland 3 would ever actually happen, as he suggested that Now You See Me is “more likely to have more movies than Zombieland.” With a fourth film already in the works, there could be some truth to his statement, but it sounds like Fleischer is committed to continuing the two franchises over the coming years – that’s if his schedule allows for it and also aligns with the core four on the cast, made up of frequent collaborators Eisenberg and Harrelson as well as Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.
Ruben Fleischer Wants to Make a “Western Vampire Movie”
In addition to making Zombieland 3 and Now You See Me 4, Fleischer has expressed interest in pursuing other projects in different genres. “There’s this Western vampire movie that I’m really excited about, that’s like a classic Western with a vampire at the center of it. Like Unforgiven, if Clint Eastwood was a vampire,” he asserted in the same interview. “I’m really hoping to make that. I feel like the two genres that I dreamed of making were a gangster movie and then a Western. So, I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to make a Western.”
Fleischer previously helmed the 2022 film adaptation of the video game series Uncharted, starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. A sequel to that film might have been expected given its box office success, but the director surprised PlayStation fans when he announced that he is instead working on a film based on Jak and Daxter. That project is currently the only one listed under the director’s upcoming titles on IMDb, but there have been very few updates about it in recent years, so its status is currently unclear. It sounds like Fleischer will have plenty to keep him busy, with or without it, especially if the zombies’ breakout again.
- Release Date
-
October 18, 2019
- Runtime
-
99 minutes
- Franchise(s)
-
Zombieland