Arnold Schwarzenegger/Abigail Breslin Zombie Thriller Maggie Begins Production

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

It was only a few months ago that the zombie thriller Maggie made big waves by signing Arnold Schwarzenegger to star. And as ridiculous as it was to consider, I didn’t really think the film would ever get off the ground with him. After all, there was an early 2014 production start date planned, and Schwarzenegger has about seven franchises whose next films he’ll be participating in, so I figured the Lotus Entertainment would replace him with someone less atypical for a zombie horror and move on. But Schwarzenegger himself blew my mind earlier today via his Twitter Page with a shot of him, co-star Abigail Breslin, and director Henry Hobson standing together, saying that production on the film started today. I’d conceived a list of one-liners for Schwarzenegger could say in the film, and now it looks like I’ll have to actually start filling it out.

“You’ll be back…from the dead.” “It’s not a tumor at all. It’s an infection of some kind.” “Oh, I feel the baby. The baby!” I’m not sure where to go with that one.

Anyway, Maggie sounds like more of a slow-burning horror than a loud and graphic one. A virus quickly spreads across the country, and the film will focus on a farm family who attend to the eldest daughter (Breslin), who has been infected and is slowly turning into a zombie. I mean, there’s always the chance that some high-octane scares will happen, but I’d really like a zombie film that deals with transformation, and the effects it has on all parties involved.

The script is from newcomer John Scott 3, who is set to adapt Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel. The Maggie screenplay earned a slot on the annual Black List before being picked up by director Henry Hobson, himself a newbie to the feature world, having directed mostly commercials and film title sequences. This project will almost definitely gain them attention around Hollywood. Hopefully the good kind, since this plotline as we know it is too simplistic to really get encouraged by.

While Schwarzenegger’s acting choices don’t seem to carry too much weight, Breslin will easily flip from the clever commercial thriller The Call from Brad Anderson, to Vincenzo Natali’s paranormal thriller Haunter, to John Wells’ comedic drama August: Osage County, to Gavin Hood’s Ender’s Game, all in the same year. So I’m interested in anything she’s involved with.

At this point, I’m ironically interested in what Schwarzenegger is doing, sadly no longer bound by illogical testosterone to the action films I loved in my youth. He’s teaming up with Sylvester Stallone for the action mystery Escape Plan and is currently filming The Expendables 3, two films that I’m not as excited about as I’d like to be. He’s also attached to the next Terminator sequel, a possible Conan film, and the long-awaited Triplets, so I’m holding out hope for Maggie, but my arms are only so big.