After recently releasing a series of photos of Nicholas Hoult in costume as the zombie R in writer-director Jonathan Levine's Warm Bodies, Summit Entertainment has pushed the zombie romance from August 10th until February 13, 2013. Hoult plays a zombie who discovers he is still somewhat human when he protects a human girl from the zombie hordes in the adaptation of Isaac Marion's novel.
No reason for the decision was offered, but the move could be fortunate. Warm Bodies was set to go up against Warner Bros.' Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis comedy Dog Fight, Columbia's Meryl Streep-Steve Carell comedy Great Hope Springs and TriStar's musical Sparkle, which will feature Whitney Houston's final big-screen performance (the move happened before Houston's passing over the weekend). Having read the script, I can say that going up against two comedies isn't the best scenario for Warm Bodies, especially against Ferrell and Carell, who both do decently at the box office. [THR]
In other Warm Bodies news, Dave Franco recently spoke to MTV about the film, describing his reason for taking part in the film.
To be completely honest I was a little hesitant about it at first because it was another zombie movie and there have been a lot of those recently. The main reason I was excited about it was because of [director] Jonathan Levine. I am a huge fan of his. I loved The Wackness and of course 50/50, but I knew that even though it was this genre we’ve seen over and over, I knew he’d bring his own take to it and make it interesting.
Franco on working with Levine:
If you do a take that he really likes he’ll jump out of his chair, running at you pumping his fist telling you how amazing you are. He just makes you feel so safe it’s unbelievable. He’s so smart and has great sensibilities. Anytime in the script where there could be a moment of melodrama, he allowed the actors to do their own thing and make it as grounded as possible. I know there are going to be comparisons to the Twilight movies and I’m not trying to sh-- on them in any way, but this one will stand apart. Even though it is a zombie monster movie in a way, it is very grounded in reality.
On his character arc (Franco plays Perry, the leader of the human resistance and Julie's (Teresa Palmer) boyfriend):
There definitely is an arc there. He starts out as this naive, sweet, wide-eyed kid who’s in love with Julie and witnesses his father turning into a zombie and dying in front of his eyes. It hardens him. He becomes this kid who loses all humanity and has this one-track mind of killing off, ending the zombie apocalypse. There was a lot to play with. It was fun to do a more dramatic role.
On Hoult's performance:
Nick Hoult, it was one of these roles that could have been a huge disaster. He barely talks in the movie. The only time he talks for the most part is in voice over and when he’s talking in voice over he’s very eloquent, almost poetic and when he’s actually interacting with other humans and zombies he can only kind of grunt and moan. It could have been a huge disaster, but Nick Hoult is so talented and so subtle and real that it all hinges on him and he killed it.
