Mike Le’s Patient Z script attracting major attention in Hollywood; could it be the next big zombie film?

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It seems that people just can't get enough zombies and Hollywood is listening.

Just days after the record-breaking season 4 premiere of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” brought in more than 16 million viewers, a hot zombie spec is making the rounds in Tinseltown with many high profile companies chomping at the bit to get ahold of it. The Wrap is reporting that Mike Le's PATIENT Z has generated strong response around Hollywood, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way banner taking the script into Fox Searchlight and Syfy Films after getting WB’s blessing.

The script has attracted the attention of several mini-majors, while other top-tier production companies in the mix include Silver Pictures, Davis Entertainment, Broken Road Productions, the Donners’ Company, WE'RE THE MILLERS producer Vincent Newman Entertainment and Misher Films, whose CARRIE remake hit cinemas this past weekend.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, “Patient Z” is a contained action-thriller about a man with the ability to speak the language of the undead who interrogates zombies with the hopes of finding Patient Zero and a cure for his infected wife.

The character-driven script features a rich mythology and is described as being in the vein of “The Walking Dead” and WARM BODIES. An individual who has read the script says that it has the potential to reinvent the zombie genre like Danny Boyle’s 28 DAYS LATER while another compared it to INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE but with zombies.

This one seems poised to make big waves in Hollywood so we'll be keeping an ear to the ground for this one.