Director Jonathan Levine going PG-13 for his upcoming zombie romance Warm Bodies

What do you do after making one of the best horror films that never gets released? If you are Jonathan Levine – whose acclaimed ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE has yet to be consumed by the general public – you take on cancer with the wonderfully touching and comedic 50/50. Yet the talented director is not resting on his laurels, he is currently prepping his latest feature WARM BODIES, the zombie romance based on the Isaac Marion novel.

Recently I spoke one on one with the director about 50/50, Mandy Lane and all sorts of other goodness. When the topic came up regarding the zom-rom-com, I asked if the focus would be on the romance and not the gore. Here is what he had to say.

“We’re going for the romance, but we are trying not to pussy out on the gore. It is going to be PG-13 because I feel like the story is such that we don’t need to see heads exploding, and I always think it’s nice to have as many people able to see it as possible. I think this will be my first non R-rated movie and I’m not going for the exploding heads. It’s going to be more like action-packed, romantic kind of situation.”

You’re going to have a lot of fanboys going, “What? No, it’s supposed to be gory!”
“I know, I’m scared of them. I’m scared of them. But, I hope to make them happy and I hope to also kind of push the boundaries of the genre as well. And we will see… but I can’t think about it, I can’t think about it! I have to think about what is best for the movie. If they hate me, they hate me. They’ll still like Mandy Lane. That’s fine. [Laughing]”

Levine has given depth and humor to 50/50 – which opens on September 30th – and helped make Amber Heard a star thanks to Mandy Lane. There is little doubt that he is ready for the challenge of a making zombie’s fresh again. This quirky feature stars Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer as the living dead and his fair maiden who find romance along with the hunger for human flesh. Check out the official synopsis below.

WARM BODIES follows a zombie known as R, who usually spends his days stumbling around the devastated Earth, groaning and looking for live human brains to snack upon. But when he ingests the cerebellum of Perry, he also takes in the man’s memories of his girlfriend, Julie, and starts to fall for her. He stops himself – and the rest of his undead fellows – from attacking her and slowly an Edward Scissorhands-style romance blossoms. There’s just one small problem: Julie’s father is the tough survivor general who will stop at nothing to wipe out the zombie hordes. But R’s relationship stirs real feeling in him for the first time, and his actions might just go on to change the world of the better.

Keep your eyes open for more on our conversation with Jonathan Levine.