Those of you who are eager to see a zombie romance on the big screen, or more specifically, those of you who are fans of Isaac Marion’s novel Warm Bodies are in for a bit of a disappointment. Summit has decided to move the date of the film’s release back by months, pushing the movie off to 2013.
Based on Marion’s novel, Warm Bodies takes place in a post-zombie-apocalyptic world where a grunting zombie named R falls for a teen named Julie, after rescuing her from his zombie pack. On paper, as someone who’s seen more than a few zombie movies, it sounds like a ridiculous premise, given that zombies are typically walking, rotting corpses, whose appetites tend to have a limited range that doesn’t usually extend beyond various parts of the human anatomy. Factor in the lack of the ability to articulate, and it’s hard to imagine a relationship between a human and a zombie working.
My own reservations about the concept aside, Marion must have found a story to tell here and one that garnered enough interest to warrant a film. Jonathan Levine is directing, with Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy) set to play play R, and Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four) playing Julie.
Summit originally had the movie set to release this August, however Box Office Mojo updated the release date to February 1, 2013. As that’s not only six months from the original release date, but nearly a year from today, fans of the book who were looking forward to the movie are likely to be disappointed by this news. Variety points out that the new date puts it as the only wide release for that weekend.
While avoiding heavier competition during the summer is certainly likely to benefit the film, Summit may also use the relatively close proximity from the release date of the final installment of their cash-cow franchise Twilight to drum up more interest in this also teen-targeted film. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 releases November 16th, about two and a half months ahead of Warm Bodies’ new release date.
Find more information and photos from Warm Bodies in our Blend Film Database.
