Zombies have always been apart of pop culture, but I don’t think they’ve been as popular as they have been since The Walking Dead began airing in 2010. With ten seasons under its belt, one more to go, and a whole bunch of spin-offs airing and in the works, The Walking Dead has left one hell of a mark on the zombie genre. So is there anywhere left for zombies to go?
ScreenAge Wasteland knows that if there is one thing fans like to do more than fancast popular characters, it is pitch their own story or film in a franchise. SAW writers Marmaduke Karlston and Jacob Holmes decided to each pitch their take on a zombie series.
Let’s eat those brains…
After the Walking Dead
The Plot: What happens after there are no more zombies? A tightly-written 10-episode per season drama that is set after the zombie apocalypse. Society attempts to rebuild itself, and citizens attempt to pick up the pieces of their former lives. You’d get the occasional zombie flashback, but this series would be primarily focused on a group of individuals dealing with their own demons and struggles (like PTSD, addiction, and relationship issues).
Side note: It wouldn’t be set in The Walking Dead universe, but I just had to use that as my title.
FanCasting: Sterling K. Brown, Linda Cardellini, Jeremy Irons, Thomas Jane, Nicholas Braun, Jacob Tremblay, Tatiana Maslany
Surviving in the Smokies
The Plot: Welcome to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the gateway to the Smoky Mountains, the Las Vegas of the South, and by my estimation, the city with the most knives and ninja stars per capita in the world. What better setting could there be for a zany action-comedy take on the zombie apocalypse?
For an example of the series’ tone, Dolly Parton cameos as she had been visiting her hometown of Pigeon Forge when the apocalypse hit. Our crew sees her surrounded and presumably eaten. However, she returns later in the episode/series as the leader of a group of survivors dual-wielding guns and noticeably missing her … assets … surviving as “the zombies never bit any real flesh.”
Some potential characters: Jack – a mid-20s male who worked at a pirate dinner show pre-apocalypse and is stuck wearing his costume for the majority of the show. Dixie and Mason – a mid-20s female and her 14-year-old brother who lost their parents but have survived by continuing to make moonshine and trade it for goods. (Most alcohol has either been gathered up by looters or destroyed by rioters and zombie hordes) Ron – an older park ranger who seems to have prepared for a situation like this and enjoys the lack of societal structure.
FanCasting: Ezra Miller, Natalia Dyer, Nick Offerman, Jack Dylan Grazer, Caleb McLaughlin, Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, Samuel L. Jackson
Vote now: which pitch would you want to see the most?
Throw your own TV series featuring zombies pitch down in the comments below!
