wayne knight Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's time for more zombies and some undead love that doesn't have sharp teeth and teenage angst. Crackle (a TV/movie/media goodness website) has just launched a new web series called Wake Up Dead. Yeah, it's more on the TV side of things, being a series and all, but it's got enough Hollywood connections to make it Cinematical friendly. And it's a zombie comedy. Who doesn't like zombies?

The brainchild of John Fasano (the pen behind Another 48 Hours, Universal Soldier: The Return, Darkness Falls and helmer behind Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare), Dead follows a university student (Jon Heder) who wakes up dead. But rather than being a drooling, brain-dead zombie a la Dawn of the Dead, he's basically just himself -- or himself mixed with the perks and downfalls of undead life. (Krysten Ritter, John Gad, Wayne Knight, and Lexi Alexander also star.)

I talked with Fasano over the weekend, and he describes the show as "Brazil's corporate nihilism meets Shaun of the Dead," birthed out of his unhappiness with his experience on Darkness Falls. He grabbed his mom's old admonishment: "One of these days you're going to wake up dead," and started morphing it into a zombie-filled feature spec, and ultimately had it rejigged into this web series. As a movie bonus, Fasano says: "look for subliminal cuts from my earliest film, Mystery Science Theater alum Zombie Nightmare -- the Montreal lensed bad cult classic starring Adam West and Tia Carrere. You can catch glimpses of Canadian Heavy Metal God Jon Thor as a zombie, as well as a young screenwriter names John Fasano under the Zombie Makeup. Nightmare is finally getting the DVD treatment this year -- look for it in all of its crappiness."

Check it out and let us know what you think below! Perhaps delight in a Zombieland/Dead double feature?

Recently, when Paddy Considine was being considered for the role of the villain Jigsaw in The Punisher: War Zone, a fan questioned why the movie would cast a Brit as an Italian mobster. That fan will probably continue wondering, because, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate has finally announced the actor who won the part over Considine, and it is another English actor, Dominic West. If you remember, Considine was offered the role when the first choice had to pass, but then that first choice ended up taking it after all. So, West must have been that first choice. Funny, I was expecting someone more well-known, but I guess with recent appearances in 300 and Hannibal Rising and a recurring part on the popular television series The Wire, West is still more famous than Cinderella Man's Considine (personally, I can only place West in 28 Days, while I've seen much of Considine's work). For those unfamiliar with the comics, Jigsaw has a torn-up and re-stitched face, so it isn't like audiences will be recognizing West's own mug anyway.

Joining West is a more familiar actor who has also just been cast in the movie. Everyone's favorite conniving fat man, Wayne Knight (Seinfeld's "Newman"), will play Microchip (aka Linus Lieberman), the lone confidant who works with The Punisher, supplying him with guns and ammo -- think James Bond's Q meets Batman's Alfred, says Wikipedia. Because we can expect nothing less from Knight, though, I have to assume he also stabs The Punisher in the back and then gets eaten by dinosaurs. West and Knight join Ray Stevenson, as The Punisher, and the recently announced Dash Mikok (Romeo + Juliet's "Benvolio"), as Detective Soap, Colin Salmon (Resident Evil), as Agent Budiansky, and Doug Hutchison (The Green Mile) as LBJ (aka Looney Bin Jim). The comic adaptation will be directed by Lexi Alexander and may be released as early as late 2008.