Thomas Middleditch Joins ‘Zombieland: Double Tap’
Thomas Middleditch, the star of Silicon Valley and the upcoming Godzilla: King of Monsters, has joined the Zombieland: Double Tap cast, Variety reports.
He joins an expanding cast that includes returning stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin as well as newcomers Rosario Dawson and Zoey Deutch.
Writing team Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese will return for the sequel and so will the original director, Ruben Fleischer, coming hot out of the success of Venom.
The original Zombieland was an action-comedy about a ragtag group of survivors identified only by American city names, Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jessie Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin, then 12-years-old) trying to survive in a world overrun by fast-moving zombies.
The film was successful at the box office with $75 million in domestic earnings and $26.8 million worldwide out of a $23.6 million budget, per Box Office Mojo, but past attempts to a sequel have fallen by the wayside.
After its success, demand for the creative team was at an all-time high.
Half of the cast, namely Jesse Eisenberg and Emma Stone, were not that well known at the time but saw their careers skyrocket soon after this movie. The following year, Jesse was cast in The Social Network and Emma in Easy A.
Meanwhile, the writing team of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick was tapped for bigger projects, notably franchise movies like GI Joe: Retaliation, Deadpool and Deadpool 2, and the 2017 sci-fi horror Life.
The writing team tried to revive the franchise with a TV pilot for Amazon in 2013, with a new cast and a plot continuing from where the movie left off. Digital Spy reports that the fan reception was extremely poor so it was never picked up, much to Reese’s disappointment.
I'll never understand the vehement hate the pilot received from die-hard Zombieland fans. You guys successfully hated it out of existence.
— Rhett Reese (@RhettReese) May 17, 2013
Zombieland was director Ruben Fleischer’s first feature and he followed it up with the smaller dark comedy 30 Minutes or Less, the crime thriller Gangster Squad, and the aforementioned Venom. While his movies are always commercially successful, they haven’t earned him the same critical acclaim he had with Zombieland, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
But now the Zombieland band is finally back together. Speaking to Fandango, Fleischer expressed joy to be working in the franchise again.
“It’s been really exciting starting to think about [Zombieland: Double Tap], and to get to work with Emma, Jesse, Woody and Abigail once again is truly a dream come true.”
It is unknown at this time what role Middleditch would play among this ragtag group of survivors, but we’ll find out when the movie premieres on the franchise’s 10th anniversary in October.
