When Zombieland: Double Tap opens in theatres later this month, it’ll be a decade since the original was released. That’s not an unheard-of amount of time between original and sequel, but for a goofy horror comedy like Zombieland, it certainly feels that way. And it seems like the movie is well aware of that.
Sony has just released a new red-band trailer for the film, and it’s filled with cursing, violence, all the kind of stuff you’d expect from a red-band trailer. Fair warning: There’s also a cameo or two that gets ruined in here, and as well as those jokes about the amount of time that has passed between movies.
Check out the new trailer below.
So, obviously, there’s the Luke Wilson joke at the end winking at the decade that’s passed. But there’s also the way the trailer really plays up the fact all four leads are Oscar nominees and one, Stone, is an actual winner. (Interestingly, all of Eisenberg and Stone’s nominations came after Zombieland; Breslin’s came before and Harrelson had one before and two after.) That kind of mainstream critical success usually means you don’t have to do movies like Zombieland: Double Tap any more, but it’s a credit to the filmmakers that the cast wanted to come back. Their agents too, probably.
I have to admit, though: This trailer is the first one that got me excited about the film. I’m a huge fan of meta-humour, as well as the work of writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, but up until now the trailers just looked like more of the same. Zombies, slow motion, we got it. But here, the fact that “that guy” appears (I won’t spoil it in case you didn’t watch) and the way the film pokes fun at its mere existence have both swayed me. Here’s hoping the team leans into those kinds of things and Double Tap changes things instead of repeating them.
We’ll find out October 17.