I think I’m falling for this zombie love story. Yesterday, we brought you a great high-res still of Nicholas Hoult as “R”, a zombie that falls in love with a girl after eating her boyfriend’s brains, in Summit Entertainment‘s big-screen adaptation of Isaac Marion’s novel Warm Bodies.
Director Jonathan Levine spoke with USAToday and describes Hoult in pretty complimentary terms:
“By any standards, Nicholas is pretty fantastic. He’s definitely the Brad Pitt of the zombie world. We wanted to stay true to the zombie tradition and yet make a believable romantic interest.”
“R” falls for Julie, played by I Am Number Four’s Teresa Palmer. Can you imagine a more star-crossed lovers situation than a zombie in love with a human? Levine continues:
“You can imagine it’s a very complicated relationship. We’re breaking new ground here.”
Don’t think this story is all only slightly dead zombies, check out these pics from Bloody Disgusting that show more stages of “R”s decomposition:
[Click Images To Blow Sh!t Up]
Above: Still pretty. Below: Decomp showing!
So zombies in this world can live vicariously so to speak through the recently living by ingesting their brains. Levine talks about “R”s path:
“They get a small taste of what it’s like to be alive. So R eats brains and does all kinds of nasty stuff at first, but at his heart, he’s an innocent.”
“R” will try his hand at non-zombie activities with “to varying degrees of success,” according to Levine:
“Driving, for instance. Let’s just say his hand-eye coordination is not what it needs to be.”
Synopsis for Warm Bodies:
Zombies love people, especially their brains. But R (Nicholas Hoult) is different. He’s alive inside, unlike the hundreds of other grunting, drooling undead—all victims of a recent plague that drove the remaining survivors into a heavily guarded city. Now the Zombies roam about an airport terminal, searching for human prey and living in fear of the vicious Boneys, the next undead incarnation.
One day, R and his best friend M lumber toward the city in search of food. There, R first sets his eyes on JULIE (Teresa Palmer), a beautiful human. Determined to save her—first from the other Zombies and then from the Boneys—R hides her in his home, a cluttered 747 aircraft. Julie is terrified, and R’s grunted assurances of “Not…eat” do little to calm her. But when R begins to act more human than Zombie, coming to her defense, refusing to eat human flesh, and even speaking in full sentences, Julie realizes that R is special.
After a few close calls with the Boneys, and with her father mounting an armed search for her, Julie realizes she can’t hide forever. So she sneaks back home, leaving R broken-hearted. Desperate to see her, R decides to comb his hair, stand a little straighter, and impersonate a human long enough to get past the city guards. If only he can prove to the humans that Zombies can change, maybe R and Julie’s love might stand a chance. But with the rampaging Boneys heading toward the city and Julie’s father intent on killing R and his Zombie friends, the stage is set for an all-out battle between the living and the undead.
A genre-bending tale of love and transformation, WARM BODIES is a story about a boy who loves a girl…for more than just her body.
Warm Bodies stars Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: First Class, About A Boy), Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four, Sorcerer’s Apprentice), John Malkovich (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Red) ,Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine, Childrens Hospital), Dave Franco (Fright Night, Superbad), Analeigh Tipton (Hung, Green Hornet), and Cory Hardrict (Battle Los Angeles, Tia and Tamara). The film is directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness).
Warm Bodies is slated to hit theaters on August 10, 2012.
