Warm Bodies the debut novel by Isaac Marion is heading to the big screen. The book, described as a zombie romance, centers around a zombie named R who lives in an airport and although has no memories, identity, or ability to speak beyond grunts, has vivid dreams and enjoys riding escalators and listening to Frank Sinatra. On one fateful day R eats the boyfriend of a girl named Julie and becomes overcome with love for her. Upon meeting Julie, R begins to change and thus begins one very unlikely romance. The book is noted to make allusions to another ill-fated romance that of Romeo and Juliet. I read this book last year and was instantly smitten with the unlikely tale and Marion’s unique voice. The book, although about a guy who eats brains for lunch, was so beautiful and poetic that I started to forget that R was a brainless undead zombie because he literally came alive on the page. One of my favorite lines from the book shows R’s yearning for something more, something to break him free of the mindless herd mentality of his fellow zombies; “I want to do something impossible. Something astounding and unheard of. I want to scrub the moss off the space shuttle and fly Julie to the moon and colonise it, or float a capsized cruise ship to some distant island where no one will protest us, or just harness the magic that brings me into the brains of the living and use it to bring Julie into mine, because it’s warm in here, it’s quiet and lovely, and in here we aren’t an absurd juxtaposition, we are perfect.”
Nicholas Hoult is perfectly cast as R and Rob Corddry is spot-on as his bumbling zombie pal M. Jonathan Levine wrote and adapted the screenplay. Look for Warm Bodies to hit theaters on February 1, 2013. Let us know in the comments if you’ve read this book and what you think of the adaptation.
