The writers of Zombieland released the script for a Mark Hamill cameo that was cut from the film but contained lots of Star Wars references. The classic zombie movie was released in 2009 to critical acclaim and had a successful follow-up, Zombieland: Double Tap in 2019. The film and its sequel were directed by Rubin Fleischer and written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese.
What made the first Zombieland a success was the movie’s well-balanced blend of action, gore, and comedy. Jesse Eisenberg played the naive yet wary hero Columbus, who introduced the audience (and Woody Harrelson’s Tallahassee) to the set of zombie survival rules he lived by. The zombie-fighting duo quickly became a quartet when Columbus and Tallahassee met two sisters: Emma Stone’s Wichita and Abigail Breslin’s Little Rock. The group’s goal was to find an amusement park in Los Angeles, rumored to be a zombie-free oasis. On the way to the park, they visit the mansion of legendary Ghostbuster Bill Murray, in what has now become an iconic,unexpected cameo.
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On Twitter, Wernick explainedthat he and co-writer Reese fired up their Mark Hamill cameo script after Sylvester Stallone and Patrick Swayze rejected them. (To be fair, Swayze was losing the fight against pancreatic cancer at the time and was simply too ill to work at all.) Wernick posted the pages from the Mark Hamill scene for fans to read and share. The scene has a very similar premise to the Murray one in the film. In this version, the group walks into a celebrity mansion, but it’s covered in Star Wars memorabilia. Tallahassee humorously confesses that he looked up to Luke Skywalker as a kid and got made fun of for it. When he actually met Mark Hamill in Las Vegas, he spat in his cocktail but ultimately gets his final vengeance by killing Hamill in the scene to hilarious effect. Check out the script pages below:
Although the Bill Murray cameo that made it into the final cut was incredible, this axed scene would’ve been just as hilarious. Like Murray, Hamill is one of those rare actors who may be ridiculously famous but doesn’t take himself too seriously. He frequently responds to questions from fans on Twitter in humorous ways, and once jokingly tweeted at Trump with a request to pardon the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.
It’s always risky to have a celebrity cameo in a movie. If the writing isn’t done right, the celebrity appearance can yank the audience out of the story. However, the Zombieland writers took a page from Murray’s book and didn’t allow the scene to take itself too seriously. Ultimately, this is what made both the axed scene and the real scene comedically strong.
Zombieland and Zombieland: Double Tap are fan favorites for a reason. The films are funny and enjoyable to a broad spectrum of fans, even those who usually don’t partake in the zombie genre. At the heart of the story are four people who just want to survive, which is scarily relevant now with the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world. Sometimes what the world needs most is a good laugh, and perhaps a Mark Hamill cameo in Zombieland 3.
Source: Screenrant, by KATHERINE STINSON