'The World's End' Creators Talk About Cops, Beers and Zombies

Back in 2004, Shaun of the Dead became a cult hit. That alone was a victory for its creators—director Edgar Wright, actor and Wright’s writing partner Simon Pegg, and actor Nick Frost, who collaborated on the British TV series Spaced—but the fact that it set them on the road to creating one of the great genre trilogies is a miracle. Their follow-up, 2007′s buddy-cop send-up Hot Fuzz, cemented their reputation for whip-smart scripts that both satirized and embraced the sci-fi and pulp tropes they’d grown up with. (Hell, Pegg’s 2011 memoir, Nerd Do Well, includes enough Star Wars meditations to choke a Hutt.)

Since then, Edgar Wright directed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and has been developing Ant-Man for Marvel. Pegg nabbed plum roles in the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises, and Frost has popped up everywhere from Attack the Block to Snow White and the Huntsman. Now, at last, the band is getting back together. Its Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy concludes with August’s The World’s End. The movie follows a group of friends who try to re-create an epic pub crawl from their youth but become humanity’s only hope in the face of an otherworldly apocalypse. Just your typical night out, really. WIRED asked the trio about bromance, revelry, and the ice cream treat that brought it all together.

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Film School, Zombies

Welcome, my dear students, to the 113^th lecture in CraveOnline's Free Film School, hands down the single best film school you will ever encounter. Why is it good? For one, it's informative and educational, and will – if working properly – expand your view of the world of cinema. Perhaps more importantly, it's free, and you're allowed to attend classes in the nude. Take THAT, NYU. This is also a film school that, when not expounding endlessly about queer cinema, or offering you half-baked editorials that escaped from the mind of the sometime-humble professor masterminding the whole deal, will have fun lectures on obscure subgenres of film. This week's lecture will be all about that now-everpresent stalwart of popular culture: zombies.

Over the course of the '00s, zombies (like vampires) somehow escaped the purview of the Halloween season, and started to shamble through every facet of pop culture at any time of the year. There was, it seems, a shared zombie apocalypse fantasy on the fingertips of every blogger, video game fan, and geek who had internet access. The joyous chaos and delightful gore promised by a good zombie attack proved to be a delicious escape that everyone seemed to share. There were the occasional books or board games or movies with zombies in them, and video game most certainly felt a huge influx of zombie material, but the zombie phenomenon seemed to be predicated on something far less tangible than a singular piece of art; it wasn't a book or a movie that kicked off the neo-zombie craze. 

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Smarter Zombies Come Up in 'Dead Rising 3'

Capcom has released a new trailer for Dead Rising 3 that features the game's new protagonist Nick Ramos and some of the toys, friends and possibilities of the new open-world zombie hack-n-slash.

The trailer, released by IGN, features some quick construction of weapons on the fly and teaming up with other characters. It also features shotgun-wielding zombies - just one of the many new, smarter zombie types - that may be a tinny bit smarter than the general hordes. New zombie types will include cops, prisoners, and football players.

Dead Rising 3 is an Xbox One exclusive set to drop this holiday season. Prepare yourself to lead Ramos in his survival after an outbreak in the open-world of Los Perdidos.

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Zombies Plague the Streets of Vancouver

NBC - The streets of Vancouver were filled with the living dead this weekend.

Although it looked like the zombie apocalypse, this is only the city's annual zombie walk.

It's a chance for regular people to ham it up as corpses
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The "undead" costumes were a little too real for some people.

Transit police said they received numerous calls from people who thought the zombies' replica weapons were real.

Hundreds of "zombies" take part in the event each year.

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Victory for the Dead as Zombies Arise

My first zombie movie was “Night of the Living Dead,” viewed at a midnight screening at the old Harvard Square Cinema, attended by a small coterie of late-night freaks and stoners. With its relentless dread and entrail-chomping ghouls, it was a film beyond the pale of normal, daytime moviegoers.

Flash forward three decades and zombie series “The Walking Dead” is one of America’s most popular TV shows, with a record-breaking 12.4 million viewers tuning into the Season 3 finale, while “World War Z” is a Hollywood summer blockbuster. Zombies are everywhere you look: The iOS app store has best-selling game “Plants vs. Zombies,” the bookstores have moved plenty of Seth Grahame-Smith’s parody novel, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” the news gives us reports of actual face-eating attacks, and the streets occasionally fill with “zombie walks,” flash-mob style parades where participants shuffle about in full undead makeup. (Walkers were even spotted in Yoyogi Park back in May.)

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Zombies, an Effective Teaching Tool for Kids

Texas Instruments, the company that made the graphing calculator the most ubiquitous learning tool since the book, is giving teachers everywhere an invaluable new tool for teaching science and math: zombies.

Yes, zombies. Zombies on graphing calculators, no less.

The walkers aren’t alone, either. Their ambassador is actress (and scientist IRL) Mayim Bialik. The woman we all knew as Blossom before she got a PhD in neuroscience and joined the cast of The Big Bang Theory has helped TI develop a program that teaches middle and high school students science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The program uses models of zombie outbreaks loaded onto TI graphing calculators, computers, or iPads to demonstrate everything from brain damage (natch) to the patterns in which disease spreads. It’s brilliant, really. Students, inundated by walkers from World War Z to The Walking Dead, already understand the basics of zombie behavior, which provides a gruesome yet entertaining mnemonic device for understanding much more complex ideas.

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Facts About Zombies

Zombie culture simply won't die. From monster hits like The Walking Dead to epic video games like The Last of Us, the theme of infected humans shambling their way to world domination plays on our real, deep-seated fears of disease, war and psychological dysfunction.

While zombies aren't real (right? Right?), our latest #5facts video unearths some trivial tidbits about classic zombie films, the taste of human flesh and how America was so close to getting the undead president it deserves.

The episode above features actress Mayim Bialik, who stars on the CBS hit comedy The Big Bang Theory. Bialik also holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience and serves as the brand ambassador for Texas Instruments. TI teamed up with Hollywood and leading educators to create free software that delves into the science behind zombies, space, superheroes and forensics in the movies, so if you're a teacher or student looking for a leg up on these STEM education topics, check out StemHollywood.com for more info.

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Zombies, Games

Now, I forget which it is: are we, as a culture, at the point where we’re past the whole “zed” thing thanks to a glut of undead-themed artistry, or was it that we’re past the whole “being past the whole ‘zed’ thing” thing thanks to a glut of critics railing against an assumed glut of undead-themed artistry? Brain… hurt…

Regardless, here’s Zombies!!! (add the “!!!” yourself from here on out) the mobile adaption of Twilight Creations’ boardgame of the same name, courtesy of devs Babaroga. Is it yet another in a long line of successful jumps from tabletop to tablet? Or… wait… here it comes… right now… is it… dead on arrival? Or.. maybe just okay. Always a third option I suppose.

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Horror Movies are Going Big

What do Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Carpenter and Jennifer Connelly have in common -- besides first names? Each started out, more or less, screaming their way through horror movies.

But the genre's no longer a training ground for tomorrow's starlets: Many well-respected stars -- of both genders -- have recently gravitated toward the once-ghettoized genre. 

As horror movies cycle from "torture porn" into headier, more classic material, actresses over 35 are lining up to do them. In this week's edition of "What's the Deal?", TheWrap examines a trend that traces back to Nicole Kidman in "The Others" and Naomi Watts in "The Ring" -- and is going strong with Jessica Chastain in "Mama" and Vera Farmiga in "The Conjuring."

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World War Z Delivers Box Office Milestone for Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt is celebrating his most successful film to date at the global box office, not accounting for inflation.

Over the weekend, the worldwide total for his zombie tentpole World War Z grew to $502.6 million, surpassing the $497.3 million earned by historical epic Troy.

From Paramount and Skydance Productions, World War Z is one of the summer's few success stories. The movie has grossed $197.4 million domestically (also a best for Pitt) and $305.2 million at the foreign box office.

BOX OFFICE REPORT: 'Elysium' Wins Crowded Race With So-So $30.5 Million 

In the movie, Pitt plays an ex-United Nations investigator who traverses the globe in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.

Mireille Enos and James Badge Dale also star.

Marc Forster directed World War Z, which is based on Max Brooks' novel. The movie was a passion project for Pitt, who produced alongside Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Ian Bryce.

By all accounts, the tentpole overcame substantial hurdles, including a lengthy delay in releasing the movie after the final act needed to be reworked.

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Salt Lake Zombie Walk Coming on Sunday

SALT LAKE CITY — Pedestrians walking around downtown this weekend may see some unusual visitors.

Superheros, villains and other geek celebrities will hit the streets Saturday, Aug. 10, as part of Salt Lake Comic Con's Cosplay Games — while the Zombie Apocalypse will come to town Sunday with the sixth annual Salt Lake Zombie Walk.

During the Cosplay Games, participants dressed up as their favorite characters will go on a scavenger hunt around the city, either alone or in groups, taking photos near city landmarks. The locations will be disclosed Saturday morning on Salt Lake Comic Con's Facebook page. After the hunt, participants are invited to attend a party at the Fear Factory.

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Scientific Learning on Zombie Apocalypse

A zombie apocalypse: Is it medically possible? Scenarios depicting large-scale attacks of the undead have been playing out on the big screen for years.

And this fall, they’ll hit classrooms too.

Students around the country can now immerse themselves in “zombie pandemics” in order to learn about how diseases spread and affect the body. It’s all part of the new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Behind Hollywood Program, which teachers and students can download for free online to use at home or in the classroom.  

The series was created by Texas Instruments (TI) and The Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and seeks to inspire student’s interest in math and science careers.  The STEM program will include installments on everything from forensics to zombies and superheroes.

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Zombie Teasers for Black Ops 2

Treyarch has got Black Ops 2 Zombies fans chomping at the bit to find out what’s in store for DLC 4.  
After teasing some things that appeared to be from previous Zombies modes in Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty: Black Ops, it looks like we’ll be hearing exactly what they have in store later today.
Treyarch teased fans saying that “Every story has a beginning and an end.”

Speculation is all over the place as to what this might mean for Black Ops 2 Zombies mode in DLC 4.  We could see the return of the original four zombie killers, which some speculate could be playable on all zombies maps in the game.  Perhaps Treyarch ties it all together with one final DLC push for the Zombies mode?  It’s hard to tell where they’ll go with the last installment.

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Age of Zombies and More

Age Of Zombies was one of the first quality games I played on Android, and it's just as good today as it was then. Halfbrick has released a demo version of their zombie-blasting, wise-cracking, sleeve-defying top-down shooter, so that even those who insist upon playing only free games can get a taste of the fun. Considering the high degree of polish in this game, I am willing to suspend my hatred for all things zombie on this occasion. You can (and should!) buy the full version for a dollar.

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Lock and load through the history of time as a tough-as-nails commando named Barry Steakfries, who is looking for nothing more than to shoot some zombies and make it back in time for a hearty dinner! The evil Professor Brains has sent hordes of undead to the furthest reaches of time to destroy mankind, but Steakfries won’t be taking that lying down. He’ll take it with a gun, a Zombie T-Rex and a whole repertoire of cheesy one-liners!

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Zombies Use for Pedestrian Safety

A creative way to bring safety awareness or an insult to victims and their families? That’s the question being posed about a new public safety campaign in Delaware that’s using zombies to warn residents of pedestrian dangers.

Last year, 30 pedestrians were killed in Delaware and 13 so far this year. Despite this, residents can still be seen crossing illegally on busy Delaware roads such as Route 13.

“We definitely need to do something a little bit more drastic and a little more attention-getting to hopefully prevent all these pedestrian crashes,” said Alison Kirk of the Delaware Department of Highway Safety.

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'The Walking Dead' Shocking Season 4

Walking Dead fans, listen up! AMC just released a video that includes some majorly intriguing news about season 4. Okay, so you know how the cast and crew has been working overtime to promote the "unreal" new threat that's going to be unveiled this season? For months now they've been talking about how the zombies are going to blow our damn minds, with actor Norman Reedus going so far as to tease, "They’ve introduced a way to make zombies scary again, and they’re terrifying. The new threat is just unreal."
 
My theory at the time was that we'd be seeing herds -- enormous, crazy-dangerous groups of walkers -- but based on one sentence from Lauren Cohan (Maggie) in AMC's new "Greetings from the Set" video, the most deadly threat of all to the survivors in season 4 isn't coming from walkers … OR outside people.

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Zombies are All Around

Piles of rubble. Slowly collapsing buildings. Dirty, desperate people. Monsters in human shape, either by choice or by disease. The symbols are common by now. The rising wave of post-apocalyptic stories is one of the dominant cultural stories of the past decade. There’s The Walking Dead, which went from comics to television, or The Hunger Games and World War Z, novels adapted to film. More importantly, it looks like the apocalypse is here to stay. Post-apocalyptic isn’t “in” just because a few films were popular and spawned more films, it’s popular because stories from different mediums are both reinforcing one another and building from the same foundation.

The beating heart of this cross-media obsession is, in my view, video games. Over the past decade, games have become an increasingly understood (if not always explicitly acknowledged) component of the media landscape, particularly as people who were raised with games begin to create their own art, or analyze it.¹1 In this video essay at Press Play, film scholar Matthias Stork documents the often symbiotic relationship between games and film. It’s not just action blockbusters that use video game aesthetics, either: Stork points out the “side-scroller” camera common to games like Super Mario Bros. being used by arthouse auteur Wes Anderson in his superb The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  And video games have been consistently interested in the apocalypse for years—which is appropriate, as they may be the best medium to deal with the subject.

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Zombies Take Fountain Square

It’s not every day that zombies invade Fountain Square, but for several hours on Thursday, that’s exactly what happened.

The zombies were there to kick of Cincinnati Bell’s fourth annual “Fastest Way to the Fireworks” promotion, which will give a winner and friends a VIP ride to the Sept. 1 Cincinnati Bell/WEBN Fireworks. The Fountain Square event was in keeping with the Dent Schoolhouse WEBN Zombie Walk and Contest planned for the fireworks this year.

Zombie face painting was offered, too. See how that went in a video.

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