‘Zombie Brother’ Live-Action Sets Todd Strauss-Schulson as Director

STX Films’ live-action adaptation of the Chinese comic series Zombie Brother is moving forward with Isn’t It Romantic director Todd Strauss-Schulson helming the project, STX Films Motion Picture Group Chairman Adam Fogelson and Tencent Pictures’ Edward Cheng announced Monday.

Zombie Brother is a comic book and series of anime shorts from Tencent Animation & Comics that follows the story of protagonist XiaoFei, an average joe living in H City. After the city’s water source becomes infected by a viral strain, XiaoFei is forced to fight his way through the never-ending spread of the zombies spawned by the outbreak. XiaoFei also leads a daring escape from H City to meet up with his girlfriend Wei in the midst of the zombie apocalypse.

The Zombie Brother anime has amassed over 3.7 billion views over the rest of its two-season run, as well as getting a stage play treatment. The comic book also has a whopping 24 billion view count over its 241 episodes.

Channing Tatum has been attached to the project as its lead in 2017, with him joining the co-producing team in 2018. Alex Rubens and Ryan Engle wrote the script for Zombie Brother.

Zombie Brother will be co-produced by STX, Tencent, and Tatum. The actor also joins Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan’s Free Association (along with Michael Parets) banner in the producing duties. Cheng and Howard Chen are executive producing for Tencent, with Conor Zorn on board as producer. Sam Brown and Drew Simon will be overseeing the project for STX Films.

In a statement, Fogelson expressed his admiration for Strauss-Schulson’s work. “Todd is the perfect choice for ‘Zombie Brother.’ His films thrive with a heart, energy, comic pace and visual inventiveness all their own,” Fogelson said. Aside from Isn’t It Romantic, Strauss-Schulson also directed a few other comedy hits such as A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and The Final Girls.

Zombie Brother has no set release date as of yet.