Nicholas Hoult will be a Warm Body in zombie rom-com

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

I had to Google who Nicholas Hoult was a week ago when he was cast in Bryan Singer’s JACK THE GIANT KILLER. I realized that he was in fact the young lad from ABOUT A BOY, now all grown up and snagging major roles left and right (he’s also Beast in FIRST CLASS).

Now he’s adding another lead to his resume in the form of WARM BODIES, which is not an R-rated sex romp as you might imagine. Rather it’s a zombie romantic-dramedy from Jonathan Levine, the man behind THE WACKNESS and ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE. So how is this not SHAUN OF THE DEAD or ZOMBIELAND?

“Warm Bodies follows a zombie known as R, who usually spends his days stumbling around the devastated Earth, groaning and looking for live human brains to snack upon. But when he ingests the cerebellum of Perry, he also takes in the man’s memories of his girlfriend, Julie, and starts to fall for her. He stops himself – and the rest of his undead fellows – from attacking her and slowly an Edward Scissorhands-style romance blossoms. There’s just one small problem: Julie’s father is the tough survivor general who will stop at nothing to wipe out the zombie hordes. But R’s relationship stirs real feeling in him for the first time, and his actions might just go on to change the world of the better.”

Yes, it’s told from the perspective of a zombie, which begs the question, will this be a mostly dialogue free affair? Hoult will play R, but might have to limit his lines to “YURRRGH” and “RARGGHH.” It does sound like a novel concept though, and I’ve been a fan of Levine’s past work, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out.