Max Payne's John Moore Fighting Zombies Next in Virulents

August 23, 2008
Source: MTV
by Alex Billington

As is always the trend in Hollywood, we spend more time talking about future projects than we do current films. Director John Moore, who's finishing up work on Max Payne with Mark Wahlberg, is already talking about his next film called Virulents. We must've missed this announcement originally, because this film is an adaptation of a comic book published by Virgin Comics and already has quite a few details out about it. In it, a platoon of Marines stationed in Afghanistan come across a group of flesh-eating vampire zombies - and the rest is history. Ironically, Moore explains that the film has lightness to it, saying that "the world's pretty serious right now", but I guess we'll to wait to find out exactly what that means.

MTV recently talked with Moore about the film and got a few juicy details out of him. "There's a touch of macabre ridiculousness to it. I think we've seen a lot of attempts to make serious movies about serious things, and it strikes me that we might be a little more artful about how we make a point [these days]." What he means is that films like The Dark Knight are very socially relevant, citing how the film "talks to our decision-making ability in the world, whether or not we can distinguish between good and evil, and it's done in a way more artful form than ramming something down someone's throat. Which is why Virulents appeals to me." That's actually a great point and I'm curious to see how he'll interpret this with zombies.

Given Moore is not even done with Max Payne yet, there are obviously no casting details or even shooting details for Virulents. The film is setup at 20th Century Fox and has newcomer John Cox set to adapt the screenplay. Moore did hint that Mark Wahlberg is his top choice for the lead, but that decision isn't really up to him. You can pick up a copy of the comic on Virgin's website if you're interested in reading more about this vampire zombie story. I'm not too pleased with Moore's work on Max Payne, considering the footage I've seen looked pretty bad, but that could change when I see the entire movie. I really love the concept and idea for Virulents, but I'm just not sure how Moore will do with it. Hopefully my opinion changes…

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