Zombieland screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese have uploaded script pages from the original movie featuring celebrity cameos that never happened.
The writers of the film always envisioned a celebrity cameo during the scene where the four main characters break into a Hollywood mansion. Bill Murray ended up with the role, but Wernick says they wrote out “a dozen or so” scenarios for that scene with different celebrities. Wernick mentions Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Joe Pesci, Matthew McConaughey and more on Twitter. So far, script pages for Patrick Swayze, Sylvester Stallone and Mark Hamill have been uploaded.
“Since we’re all currently living in #zombieland, @rhettreese & I thought it’d be fun to take you behind the curtain, back to the early days,” Wernick said in a post on Twitter. “The role Bill Murray played started in the original draft as Patrick Swayze. Patrick tragically got sick and we never had the opp [sic] to offer him the part. But we did WRITE IT. Along with a dozen or so [for different celebrities]. @rhettreese and I are going to post a new scene every day, as written, just, well, just because…”
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The Swayze script was uploaded by Wernick in four parts on Thursday. Wernick notes that most of the characters had different names at this time. Jesse Eisenberg’s character was originally Flagstaff, Woody Harrelson’s character was once named Albuquerque and Abigail Breslin’s character was Stillwater. And, Swayze is already a zombie when the characters pull up to the mansion whereas Bill Murray was pretending to be one.
The scene starts off with Harrelson’s character imitating Road House and ends with Harrelson performing a move from Dirty Dancing that sends Zombie Swayze head-first into a pillar.
— Paul Wernick (@paulwernick) March 19, 2020
Reese uploaded the Stallone version to Twitter on Friday. “We sent this to Mr. Stallone… but his schedule / better judgment thwarted our plans,” Reese said. In this version, all of the characters’ names match the ones from the final movie and Stallone is also a zombie from the very beginning.
Hamill’s version was posted on Wernick’s Twitter on Saturday. Hamill is also a zombie the whole time and eventually has his arm cut off in a moment that mimics his dismemberment from The Empire Strikes Back.
“So a no-go on Swayze & [Stallone]. Our fearless leader, [producer Gavin Polone,] called: ‘Fire up the [Mark Hamill] draft’ We would not be deterred,” Wernick wrote on Twitter. “#BillMurray hadn’t yet been mentioned, for we would have never in our wildest imagination thought we could get him.”
“So we used the force. And got a forceful f*** no,” Wernick wrote.
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All’s well that ends well. The Zombieland crew eventually attracted Murray to the role and the rest is history. The movie received critical praise on its release in 2009 and ended up making over $100 million at the box office on a budget of $23.6 million, according to The Numbers. A sequel was released in October 2019. The Numbers says the sequel grossed $122 million at the box office on a budget of $48 million.
Did you know that Ryan Reynolds almost ended up as a celebrity cameo in Zombieland 2? Also, check out a side-by-side comparison of the original Zombieland cast with themselves 10 years later. For more Zombieland goodness, here are 6 details you may have forgotten about the original movie.
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Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who LOVES Zombieland and will gladly be in the theater every 10 years for a sequel.
Source: IGN.com Zombieland Writers Reveal Mark Hamill, Sylvester Stallone Cameos That Never Happened