Zombie Movies based on/inspired by Zombie Novels & Comics?

[Wyldwraith]

Hey,
Was recently discussing Empire with a friend. About how this novel alone has put forward a solid, well-thought-out and story-contributing methodology for zombies gaining intelligence and/or memory. Also is the only example I can think of that gives a solid, satisfying reason for why zombies eat human flesh and what they get out of it.

Anyways, it got me thinking. We've discussed how stagnant the zombie movie genre has become, and how even when directors/scriptwriters try to cobble together new sorts of plot devices what they always seem to come up with is just ratcheting up the gore or pace of the action. Yet here we have a significant number of Zombie Apocalypse-themed novels with really great, highly creative "rules sets/world-settings/plot devices."

So, I wonder if we wouldn't end up with a better genre if more of these innovative novels became fodder for new zombie films?

I mean, everyone's so jazzed about The Walking Dead being done as a miniseries, and it's a successful comic. The first high-quality long-running horror comic I know of that's become the source material for a Cable Miniseries of this scope.

So, isn't there something to the idea that zombie apocalypse storylines & plot devices are much fresher in written/drawn media than movies currently are?

Thoughts?

[dracenstein]

Aside from The Walking Dead, I can only think of the forthcoming World War Z based on the Max Brooks book.

Actually, I thought I read somewhere that Jonathan Maberry's Patient Zero was being turned into a mini-series. I love his Joe Ledger books.

[Wyldwraith]

That's my point,
If you go to the bookstore, or Hell, just look on Amazon, you'll see that TONS of zombie apocalypse-themed books and even trilogies are coming out/have come out these days. Sequels are becoming more and more common etc. The point is, there's all this potential source material to draw Movie-adaptations from, but so far all that's being done is the Walking Dead cable miniseries, and the Forever-Stalled World War Z-based movie.

Just off the top of my head. Books that would make AWESOME, better-than-anything-we've-seen Zombie Movies.
1) The Autumn Series. I give this one pride-of-place at #1 because it's already an extensive 5+ book franchise, thus providing huge amounts of content to cherry-pick a Movie storyboard from.

2) Empire is just that badass. It's innovative in absolutely incredible ways, while staying very true to the classic zombie movie roots from which it springs. It has one of the best "Zombie Rules-sets & World Settings" that I've ever seen, and best of all, wouldn't need any larger a budget than a Romero Classic Trilogy film to make (adjusting for inflation/time's passage of course). C'MON, who DOESN'T want to see the GRIM REAPER fashion an ultra-cool Scythe from the bones of zombies he's killed and then bodily dismember all those rotters who stand in the way of his accomplishing his fervent goals.

3) The Rot and Ruin A new book, and one with TONS of promise as a "What Land might've been had it reached its full potential and avoided the stupid plot devices that corrupted the overall plot, movie." Completely classic shamblers world-setting, following Romero's rules vigorously, even to the point of making subtle references to things that happened in the Dead films as rumors people have passed on in various survivor enclaves. A great deal of depth and incredibly engaging, totally believable characters. The protagonists are people you can respect and root for, but clearly see as people also struggling to overcome flaws within themselves to do what needs doing. The antagonists are guys you love to hate due to their barbarically monstrous outlook and complete disregard for human life and the suffering of even children, yet you see enough humanity and consistent personality traits driving these bad guys that you intuitively grasp that they feel like real people doing real evil, instead of simply being shallow caricatures representing Good Vs. Evil in unrealistic absolutism. The Rot and Ruin has so much more than I've said about it here. (as do the Autumn and Empire novels), but the highest praise I can give The Rot & Ruin is that it could make a nearly seamless transition as-is to the big screen, easily fitting the plot's entirety into say 105-110 mins by simply streamlining the dialog in places.

4) The War Against Them. This one embodies that global-scale zombie apocalypse we all want to see well-portrayed in a movie, and has the added benefit of offering a linear storyline and world-setting that's complete in a traditional sense, as opposed to the Oral History sectioning the Z-War into mini-stories as World War Z does. The War Against Them just SCREAMS to be adapted into a movie, because it so easily could become that global-scale Zombie Apocalypse movie that blows us all away.

There's literally DOZENS MORE that have been published in the last couple of years, and that's just the very successful ones. Even the more mediocre books often have multiple plot devices each that could be fused with a higher-quality plotline. Hell, Marvel could make Marvel Zombies into a movie and do great if they drew on the continuity of all the Marvel Zombies add-on comics.

Speaking of superheroes + zombies, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the absolutely drool-worthy awesomeness of a movie based on the Ex-Heroes novel. All the coolness of mixing superheroes and a zombie apocalypse, but done if a FAR grittier, more ultra-realism-style format compared to Marvel Zombies. Yes, the Superheroes have powers (most of them), but the power levels and general feel keeps them closer to a Watchmen-style setting than the Pure Superhero Comicness of the X-Men etc. Ex-Heroes would make SUCH an awesome movie.

Anyways, just thought I'd lay my view on the subject and some of the (IMO) prime candidates for Book-to-Movie conversion. Most of these authors aren't Ultra-A-Listers yet, so I don't imagine that the movie rights would be THAT expensive. (BTW, I meant that these authors aren't long-established and iconic in the horror genre yet. Their skill-level and talent is CERTAINLY A++ list.)

What do you folks think?

[ProfessorChaos]

i've got a handful of living-dead anthologies, and one author that kicks some serious ass is glen vasey. the only stories of his that i know of are "choices" from book of the dead and "one step at a time" from book of the dead 2. i'd love to see both of these narratives on the screen, but they are way too short to make a whole film out of.

haven't really read too many full-length novels about ghouls, aside from the night and dawn novelizations and day by day armageddon, so i'm not sure about what all's out there. sadly, while the living dead world is a great setting for some awesome literature, seems like (as with movies), 90% of what's out there isn't worth the time or effort to bother with.

been wanting a good book to read, perhaps i will look into your recommendations, wraith.

[Legion2213]

I reckon "Day By Day Armageddon" will be picked up eventually. :)

[Wyldwraith]

Oh man,
There's literally dozens of INCREDIBLE Zombie Apocalypse books out. The last couple years culminated in last year, which the New York Times called The Year of the Zombie, due to the sheer number of high-selling Zombie novels.

Besides the Autumn series (first book of that series is named Autumn), Empire (which has a sequel due soon), The Rot and Ruin and The War Against Them which I've already mentioned, and the Day by Day Armageddon 1 & 2 mentioned by Legion, here's some other great zombie books...

1) The Morningstar Strain and The Morningstar Strain: Thunder and Ashes (book 2).
2) History Is Dead: A Zombie Anthology. Basically stories set in historical settings that include zombie outbreaks. Good stuff.
3) Eve of the Dead
4) Survive (The New Zed Order)
5) Dead: The Ugly Beginning
6) Ex-Heroes
7) Eden & Crusade (books 1 & 2 of the Eden Trilogy)
8) Planet of the Dead (lot like the opening of RE: Apocalypse or even more like the beginning of 28 Days later, only with the returning crew from the International Space Station, Shamblers not runners and real undead zombies.)
9) Z is for Zombie/The War Against Them: (Both wars versus the undead-type novels. Excellent.)

I could go on and on and on. These are just a few that met my specific tastes, not necessarily just the best/mediocre or worst. There are literally a couple hundred of EXCELLENT Zombie Apocalypse books available on Amazon. Many for .99 to 2.99/3.49. I recently bought ten books for 11$ plus a few bucks for S&H. 9 of them were great, and one was all right.

If you have broader interests than ONLY zombies, there are ALSO tons of Infection/Omega Man-style novels being published as well. I refrained from mentioning them here because this is Dead Discussion, but they're there.

Anyways, to wrap up, there's a treasure trove of novels out there that would preclude a motivated Director & Producer from needing to find a scriptwriter who's more than mediocre. All you need is someone who can do a clean conversion of the content from the novels into scripts. Streamline the dialog, edit out unnecessary content dealing with "reading the thoughts" of the characters, etc.

Some of em just SCREAM for a conversion to the big screen. Put it this way: There are at least 3 I can think off offhand that would outshine The Walking Dead.

BTW, if you like Zombie story anthologies, and Zombie Survival Guide-type books, there are now TONS OF THEM. Everything from How-To Guides of how to thrive during a Zombie Apocalypse, (one of which is actually titled How to Live Like Kings During the Zombie Apocalypse), to fictional "historical events" altered or perpetrated by human vs zombie conflict. History Is Dead is a great example of this.

Just check out Amazon, typing Zombie into the Books Section search engine will bring up all the Zombie Goodness you could ever want.

[JonathanMaberry]

That's my point,
3) The Rot and Ruin A new book, and one with TONS of promise as a "What Land might've been had it reached its full potential and avoided the stupid plot devices that corrupted the overall plot, movie." Completely classic shamblers world-setting, following Romero's rules vigorously, even to the point of making subtle references to things that happened in the Dead films as rumors people have passed on in various survivor enclaves. A great deal of depth and incredibly engaging, totally believable characters. The protagonists are people you can respect and root for, but clearly see as people also struggling to overcome flaws within themselves to do what needs doing. The antagonists are guys you love to hate due to their barbarically monstrous outlook and complete disregard for human life and the suffering of even children, yet you see enough humanity and consistent personality traits driving these bad guys that you intuitively grasp that they feel like real people doing real evil, instead of simply being shallow caricatures representing Good Vs. Evil in unrealistic absolutism. The Rot and Ruin has so much more than I've said about it here. (as do the Autumn and Empire novels), but the highest praise I can give The Rot & Ruin is that it could make a nearly seamless transition as-is to the big screen, easily fitting the plot's entirety into say 105-110 mins by simply streamlining the dialog in places.

Thanks for that excellent and insightful review. There are thirteen pages of free prequel scenes for ROT & RUIN available on the Simon & Schuster webpage for the book. Here’s a link to the main page; access the scenes by clicking on the banner that reads: READ BONUS MATERIAL BY JONATHAN MABERRY: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Rot-Ruin/Jonathan-Maberry/9781442402324

Benny Imura and his friends will return in DUST & DECAY (summer, 2011)

[paultagonist]

That's my point,
1) The Autumn Series. I give this one pride-of-place at #1 because it's already an extensive 5+ book franchise, thus providing huge amounts of content to cherry-pick a Movie storyboard from.


Well, Autumn has been made into a movie.. I thought it was pretty good, too, as far as these things go. It was available pretty much everywhere; you could even rent it through Redbox for some time!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqwSIDQ3l6A