Alternate ‘Zombieland’ Script Pages Feature Cameos Kevin Bacon and Jean-Claude Van Damme Regretted Passing Up

30 March 2020 News Desk Comedy, Horror, Jean-Claude-Van-Damme, Kevin-Bacon, News, Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, Sony, Trivia, Zombieland

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are revealing more of the alternate script pages for Zombieland that would have given the big cameo made famous by Bill Murray to a number of other movie stars.

Patrick Swayze was in the very first draft of the movie, but he never got offered the part since he was diagnosed with cancer around the time the movie would have started production. Then Sylvester Stallone had to pass due to scheduling, and Mark Hamill’s people just flat out said no (read those pages here). And Zombieland just didn’t have enough money to lure Joe Pesci in. The offers didn’t stop there though, because Kevin Bacon and Jean-Claude Van Damme were each offered the cameo, and they both turned it down. Read the latest alternate Zombieland cameo script pages below.

Kevin Bacon’s Alternate Zombieland Cameo

Paul Wernick posted these script pages to Twitter on March 24.

These script pages follow the same path as those of Patrick Swayze and Sylvester Stallone where Tallahassee had a lot of respect and love for their work, and then ended up being disappointed by them. However, in this case, it wasn’t about a bad movie that Kevin Bacon made. No, instead, Tallahassee ended up shunning Kevin Bacon because of his full frontal nude scene in Wild Things. Basically, “Kevin’s bacon” was so impressive that it embarrassed Tallahassee, and he never forgave the Footloose star.

Also, this is one of the versions of the cameo where the movie in the DVD player of Kevin Bacon’s home theater isn’t one of his good movies. It’s Hollow Man.

So why didn’t Kevin Bacon take the role? Actually, it wasn’t really his decision. The offer went out to Kevin Bacon but he never got sent the pages and it was his representatives that turned it down. Apparently Bacon reached out to Reese and Wernick after the movie came out, told them he loved the movie, and took them out to breakfast. That’s a class act right here.

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Alternate Zombieland Cameo

Rhett Reese posted these alternate script pages to Twitter on March 28.

Previously, it was Mark Hamill’s version of the cameo that didn’t quite feel up to snuff. But I think the Jean-Claude Van Damme version is now the worst alternate version of the cameo. There are so few good references to his movies here. JCVD doesn’t even have a movie in his home theater DVD player. Instead, Tallahassee makes shadow puppets from the movie projector for Little Rock. And since JCVD doesn’t really have a soundtrack or theme that’s famous from any of his movies, the music gag just uses generic tunes for the scene. It’s a bare bones version of the script that would have had some comedy come from JCVD’s physicality, but the rest of the jokes in the scene are wasted.

Dwayne Johnson and Matthew McConaughey are among the other alternate Zombieland cameo scenes teased, and there might be even more than that, so stay tuned.

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