The biggest surprise for me at Comic Con 09 was the Zombieland panel. I’m a huge zombie fan, have been since I was a kid, but the recent glut of films and books and games and etc have left me a little bit burnt out on the monsters. I wasn’t expecting much from Zombieland, which to me looked like a late in the game studio cash grab.

Turns out that Zombieland has the potential be excellent. What we saw in Hall H was funny and interesting, and had real characters. What I was reminded of was Shaun of the Dead – not in quality or anything but just in the way that these were well-sketched characters being funny in the midst of a legit zombie movie.

Especially intriguing was Woody Harrelson, who looks to be having a lot of fun as a shitkicker who has discovered his calling as a zombie exterminator. And pairing him with an ultra nebbishy Jesse Eisenberg feels genius.

What I think might set this film apart is that director Ruben Fleischer revealed it was originally developed as a TV show. That means the writers thought through aspects of post-zombie life that rarely get presented in the movies. We saw some scenes that really reflected that, including one really great scene where Eisenberg and Harrelson meet and get grifted by two young girls.

Now you can get a better look at Zombieland, as a red band trailer has popped up on MySpace. I especially love Woody on the rollercoaster picking off zombies. That must pop up in a video game.