After tackling the meta worlds of horror and romantic comedies with The Final Girls and Isn’t It Romantic, director Todd Strauss-Schulson will head into comic book territory with an adaptation of the Chinese digital comic book Zombie Brother. If this is the first you’re hearing of the comic, we’ll let you know what it’s all about below.
Variety has word on the Zombie Brother movie landing director Todd Strauss-Schulson. STX Films and Tencent Pictures are teaming on the project that will adapt the digital comic, which is already a monster hit overseas. Since 2011, the title has raked in over 24 billion views spread across 241 episodes. On top of that, it’s already been turned into an animated series with over 3.7 billion views and there was even a stage play. So this is a hot international commodity.
An adaptation of Zombie Brother has been kicking around Hollywood for a little while with Channing Tatum, Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan’s Free Association behind the project. Originally, Kung Fury director David Sandberg was going to helm the movie with a script from Matt Leiberman, but neither is mentioned in the recent news, which has Alex Rubens credited with writing the script, which includes contributions from Ryan Engle.
So what is Zombie Brother about? A report from late last year pegged this as the synopsis:
“The film will follow Bai, as he teams up with his best friend Fatty, soon-to-be fiancé Beck, and a group of New Yorkers to survive a monster apocalypse. As the group travels through the city, they uncover the origin of the outbreak and must embark on a quest to stop the apocalypse and save the world.”
This sounds like something much different for Strauss-Schulson, who has taken on an eclectic roster of films in his career as a feature filmmaker. This all comes after starting off with A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, which ended up being the most visually interesting of the franchise. And Strauss-Schulson’s work on The Final Girls and Isn’t It Romantic only continued to show his penchant for vibrant storytelling. STX Films chairman Adam Fogelson agrees, saying in a statement:
“Todd is the perfect choice for ‘Zombie Brother.’ His films thrive with a heart, energy, comic pace and visual inventiveness all their own.”
Right now, Strauss-Schulson is busy working on his film Silent Retreat, a new comedy that we just heard about earlier this year. That film follows a struggling couple and a mother-son duo having problems of their own who try to cure their ails by partaking in a meditation retreat that requires silence from them for three days straight.
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