Have you ever thought about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia meeting 90s TV show Dinosaur, with a little bit of zest from Day of the Dead?
Well, Long Beach filmmaker Julian Doan and his filmmaking sidekick Alex Hunter have—and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have taken notice of their project Zombroz, advancing the film into the top 20 films for their re-greenlit HBO series Project Greenlight.
Nearly fifteen years ago, the Hollywood pair approached HBO with the idea of finding filmmaking talent in unconventional ways—in this case, scanning through over 7,000 screenplays to pick a winner who will have to deal with Hollywood professionals to make a film successfully. Winner Pete Jones was followed around on season 1 as he was provided money to produce and then a slot to premiere his film, Stolen Summer, at the Sundance Film Festival.
After running for three seasons, the show halted production but has received a breath of new life thanks to technology. This season takes to the social media giant Facebook, having begun with a digital competition on the network and will eventually pick a winner who will be followed from pre-production and casting through principal photography and post-production. The task before Doan and Hunter, should they win after voting ends this Friday, will not be easy: Doan will have to deal and cope with pressure from executives who do this type of thing while sleeping, on top of dealing with a veteran crew and set of actors as well as deadlines, Walk of Fame politics, and a budget.
But they’re not getting too far ahead of themselves quite yet. Getting through production of their submission was grueling enough—and might just be proof that they can handling the intensity of an unadulterated, big-time Hollywood set.
Left to right: DP Alfredo Lopez, 1st AC Zack Haskell, 2nd AC Gabe Garcia.
“Production was—it was just crazy,” Doan said. “We had a 20-hour day. Twenty. Hours. We sent out a skeleton crew—Alex and I, the director of photography, and the actors—to Santa Monica, and while we were shooting there, the rest of the crew was at the NoHo location doing lighting and staging. I hated having to put everyone through that intense of a shoot but I had no other choice due to scheduling conflicts. Luckily everyone was more than happy to power through and I like to think that we came out on top.”
Zombroz tells the story of five—you got it—zombie bros who have to deal with the painful task of everyday living after the apocalypse has left zombies as the coherent, dominant race (with pet human animals to top it all off).
The film is almost entirely made by Cal State Long Beach alumnus: in the title roles are theatre alumni Turner Munch, Andrew Eiden, and Raymond Lee alumni; Jole Sanchez, one of the co-writers, is also from the Theatre program; the director of photography, Alfredo Lopez, is from the Department of Film & Electronic Arts (as is Doan, class of 2009); and the majority of the production team hails from CSULB as well.
With an adoration for 90s sitcoms and a playfulness that only complete goofballs can harness, Zombroz was born.
“Alex Hunter approached me with the idea, and I was ecstatic,” Doan said. “We love zombies. We love comedy. It’s in our blood—no pun intended. We thought, ‘What if zombies lurched around because they were just really plastered?’”
There’s even a theme song for Zombroz to make sure the concept is extraordinarily corntastic.
Even outside of achievements—making it into the top 20 out of thousands of applicants is not something to furrow your brow at—they still have the end-goal in sight.
“We are extremely grateful and excited to have even come this far,” Doan said. “But as with many filmmakers, a feature film is our end goal; winning Project Greenlight would not only afford us that opportunity, but would let us work with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, a director and an actor we have immense respect for.”
You can watch Zombroz by clicking here. When you’re done watching the film, if you liked it, you can vote for the Long Beach team. Voting ends this Friday, September 26, at 9:00PM PST.