Trailer just dropped, so might as well create a thread:
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CW & DC Comics' "iZombie" (From Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas) official thread
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'iZombie' crew on eating fake brains, 'Veronica Mars' comparisons, ZILFs & more
Why doesn't Rose McIver get a spray tan? And what do the brains taste like?
By Alan Sepinwall @Sepinwall | Sunday, Jan 11, 2015 1:56 PM
Rob Thomas is a writer, so he's obviously concerned with story and character and other matters creative. But he's also a veteran writer/producer — and, as creator of "Veronica Mars," a man who had to do a lot of selling over the last couple of years — so he also is well aware of when art has to bend for commerce.
So when Thomas — who, with fellow "Veronica Mars" vet Diane Ruggiero-Wright, has adapted the Vertigo comic "iZombie" for the CW — was asked why Rose McIver's character, Liv, doesn't bother with spray tanning, hair dye, or other attempts to disguise her condition as an intelligent zombie, he was very blunt.
"In some ways, it's the least logical decision she could make," he admitted, since many of the show's other zombies (notably David Anders as a drug-dealing zombie named Blaine) do make an effort to look more normal. "The truth of the show is the reason she doesn't spray tan or dye her hair to look everyone else is she will look great on our poster."
Eventually, he said, they would come up with an in-show reason, and has talked up the idea of Liv being an "out and proud" zombie, even though she conceals her true nature from everyone but Ravi (Rahul Kohli), her colleague at the Seattle morgue.
McIver, the New Zealand native and "Masters of Sex" alum placed in the center of this, has found both the makeup and the fake brains she has to eat a mixed blessing. The makeup takes between 90 minutes and two hours to apply — and, because it has to cover every inch of exposed skin, she's pleaded with the costume department for long sleeves and pants whenever possible — "but when I put it on, it does a lot of work for me."
As for the brains, "It's like coconut gelatin, kind of," she explained. "Independently, it would be okay, but to combine it with what looks like blood, we have vegetable juice poured all over it... It's not really idea, but we're working on it."
("It's not sexy like it should be," added Anders. "We have spit buckets.")
Though Liv's look is modeled on the character from the comics — and "iZombie" artist Mike Allred draws the show's opening credits, as well as the comic book-style panels that appear at the beginning of each act — the show is mostly a procedural that borrows a few devices from the comic, particularly Liv's ability to share the memories, talents and personalities of the people whose brains she eats, which lets her solve crimes with the help of Ravi and local cop Clive (Malcolm Goodwin). The comic book features a whole monster cosmology (one of Liv's best friends is a were-terrier), but Thomas and Ruggiero-Wright wanted to keep things streamlined, and wound up with a show that feels very much like if Veronica Mars(*) grew up and became a zombie — down to Liv narrating her adventures.
(*) Remember, "Veronica Mars" was one of the shows in the CW's inaugural schedule, as a holdover from UPN. And in between then and now, Thomas and Bob Dearden wrote the very funny "Veronica" web spin-off "Play It Again, dikk" for the CW's digital platform CW Seed. (Continuing the blending of the two franchises, Dearden also wrote a season 1 "iZombie" episode.)
"I think that Veronica's hardened," Thomas said of the difference between his two heroines. "I always wanted us to, at our best in those voiceovers, strive for this very Raymond Chandler-esque hard-boiled cynical worldview. I think that Liv in 'iZombie' is more naturally a softer character. Part of the journey for her is a return to sweetness and light and finding things that are worth going on living for. While I think the technique is the same, their attitudes are pretty different."
Because the CW is a network built around attractive young actors(**), the traditional decayed zombie look of "The Walking Dead" and the George Romero movies doesn't turn up often, except when Liv encounters a zombie who's gone too long without eating a brain. Thomas said that they wanted Liv, Blaine and other zombies to seem like they could have relationships with people, and joked that at one point, "We were were calling the show 'ZILFs.'"
(**) "One Tree Hill" alum Robert Buckley, who plays Liv's ex-fiance Major — and who's much funnier than your average CW handsome person — responded to a question about this, "The CW has an attractive, young person thing?! Am I the last person to figure this out!?” (Later, when asked his first direct question, he said he wanted to seem smart when he answered, and produced a pair of eyeglasses from his jacket.)
And unlike "The Walking Dead," "iZombie" exists in a universe where all those other zombie movies and TV shows exist, and Liv frequently rents zombie movies to get a better handle on her condition.
"It was something we really enjoyed about the show," said Ruggiero-Wright. "It's so prevalent in pop culture that we're having fun that she's doing that for research. If I became a zombie, that's what I would do. I would watch 'The Walking Dead.'"
"iZombie" premieres Tuesday, March 17 at 9 p.m., after "The Flash." It's a fun show in about the best timeslot the CW could give it.
http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-wa...e-brains-veronica-mars-comparisons-zilfs-more
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How Does iZombie's World Compare to The Walking Dead?
Creator Rob Thomas dishes on making a zombie show where characters know about zombies, and how hero Liv compares to Veronica Mars.
12 JAN 2015 BY MATT FOWLER
Based on the DC/Vertigo comic, The CW's iZombie tells the story of a young woman, Liv (Rose McIver - Power Rangers RPM, Masters of Sex), who has reluctantly become one of the recent undead. To feed her cravings for brains, she takes a job a morgue, discovering that absorbing the grey matter allows her to see the final memories of murder victims.
Executive producers Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, Party Down) and Diane Ruggiero Wright (Veronica Mars), along with McIver and the rest of the cast, recently fielded questions at the Television Critics Association press tour and spoke about the difference between iZombie's undead and those on AMC's The Walking Dead, and how McIver's Liv might compare to the iconic Veronica Mars character.
"We didn’t hew terribly closely to the source material," Thomas admitted. "In the iZombie comic book, there’s a whole monster universe. There are were-terriers and ghosts. We wanted to stay strictly zombie, so we only have zombies in the show. And we really needed a story engine. We wanted to do a case of the week show. In the comic book, the main character is a gravedigger and that’s how she gets her brains. By making her an assistant medical examiner and putting her in the morgue, it gave us our case of the week that we wanted."
Thomas then elaborated a bit more on the traits and quirks Liv adopts whenever she eats a person's brain. "One of the big elements that we did retain from the comic book is the idea that when she eats brains, she gets the memories of the dead people," he said. "That was one of the big selling points in the comic book. And then, when we started getting into the writers’ room and talking about whether she’s going to inherit the talents of the people that she ate, there were lively and lengthy discussions about how far do we go with that. If she eats the brains of someone who knows karate, is she a karate expert for the week? In the pilot, she eats the brains of someone who speaks Romanian. Can she do that this week? And at the end of the day, we decided it was just more fun to say yes to those things."
However, once Liv consumes a new brain, the old traits vanish. "Our logic is if she eats a new brain, that the stuff from the previous brain is gone," Thomas clarified.
Star McIver -- who's appeared as Tinker Bell on Once Upon a Time and on Masters of Sex in the past year -- opened up about the role and about getting a part where she, essentially, gets to play different characters depending on whose brain Liv eats. "I feel like as an actor, that was always why I started out doing this, is I wanted variety and I wanted to be able to play all these different characters and live a whole bunch of lives in one," she said. "So it’s kind of the dream job in that sense where I’ve been able to try my hand at all different styles and characters and actual genres. I mean, we combine so many things in this show. It’s great. It really is variety."
In the hardened world of AMC's The Walking Dead, zombies don't exist as a thing characters know about - from movies, TV, or books. It's not even a word anyone uses. But that's not the case on iZombie. "It wasn’t a part of the comics, but it was something that we really enjoyed about the show," Ruggiero-Wright revealed. "Because it is so prevalent in pop culture that we’re having a lot of fun with the fact that that’s where [Liv] does her research. If there were a zombie attack, what would you do? I would watch The Walking Dead and see you could pick up a lot of useful tips. So I think that’s one of the best parts of the show to me, is that they know zombies exist. They can make jokes about it. They reference it, and it was an easy decision because it was the most fun."
But does that mean that the zombies on the show will always be pretty? "If [Liv] didn’t eat, she would decay," Ruggiero-Wright continued. "If we locked her in an elevator for a month, she would start to look like a regular zombie."
Thomas expanded on that, saying "In Episode 3, you see an example of what happens to one of our zombies if they don’t eat." He added that if Liv didn't continue to feed on brains, "She would be a Walking Dead-style zombie - or what we in the show call a 'Romero.'
"I was just thinking that The CW was really wanting to do something different and thought that they might have a show with some attractive people," Ruggiero-Wright joked.
Both Thomas and Ruggiero-Wright of course are known for Veronica Mars, another series with a formidable female lead. But how might Liv differ from Veronica, zombie-ism aside? "I think that Veronica’s hardened," Thomas said. "I always wanted us to sort of, at our best in those voiceovers, strive for this very Raymond Chandler-esque, hard boiled, cynical world view. And I think Liv and iZombie is more naturally a softer character. It’s part of the journey for her is return to sweetness and light and finding things in life that are worth going on living for. So while we are using that [voiceover] technique in both, I think their attitudes are pretty different when we’re writing that VO."
iZombie premieres on Tuesday, March 17th at 9/8c on The CW.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/01...n-the-cws-izombie-compare-to-the-walking-dead
"
How Does iZombie's World Compare to The Walking Dead?
Creator Rob Thomas dishes on making a zombie show where characters know about zombies, and how hero Liv compares to Veronica Mars.
12 JAN 2015 BY MATT FOWLER
Based on the DC/Vertigo comic, The CW's iZombie tells the story of a young woman, Liv (Rose McIver - Power Rangers RPM, Masters of Sex), who has reluctantly become one of the recent undead. To feed her cravings for brains, she takes a job a morgue, discovering that absorbing the grey matter allows her to see the final memories of murder victims.
Executive producers Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, Party Down) and Diane Ruggiero Wright (Veronica Mars), along with McIver and the rest of the cast, recently fielded questions at the Television Critics Association press tour and spoke about the difference between iZombie's undead and those on AMC's The Walking Dead, and how McIver's Liv might compare to the iconic Veronica Mars character.
"We didn’t hew terribly closely to the source material," Thomas admitted. "In the iZombie comic book, there’s a whole monster universe. There are were-terriers and ghosts. We wanted to stay strictly zombie, so we only have zombies in the show. And we really needed a story engine. We wanted to do a case of the week show. In the comic book, the main character is a gravedigger and that’s how she gets her brains. By making her an assistant medical examiner and putting her in the morgue, it gave us our case of the week that we wanted."
Thomas then elaborated a bit more on the traits and quirks Liv adopts whenever she eats a person's brain. "One of the big elements that we did retain from the comic book is the idea that when she eats brains, she gets the memories of the dead people," he said. "That was one of the big selling points in the comic book. And then, when we started getting into the writers’ room and talking about whether she’s going to inherit the talents of the people that she ate, there were lively and lengthy discussions about how far do we go with that. If she eats the brains of someone who knows karate, is she a karate expert for the week? In the pilot, she eats the brains of someone who speaks Romanian. Can she do that this week? And at the end of the day, we decided it was just more fun to say yes to those things."
However, once Liv consumes a new brain, the old traits vanish. "Our logic is if she eats a new brain, that the stuff from the previous brain is gone," Thomas clarified.
Star McIver -- who's appeared as Tinker Bell on Once Upon a Time and on Masters of Sex in the past year -- opened up about the role and about getting a part where she, essentially, gets to play different characters depending on whose brain Liv eats. "I feel like as an actor, that was always why I started out doing this, is I wanted variety and I wanted to be able to play all these different characters and live a whole bunch of lives in one," she said. "So it’s kind of the dream job in that sense where I’ve been able to try my hand at all different styles and characters and actual genres. I mean, we combine so many things in this show. It’s great. It really is variety."
In the hardened world of AMC's The Walking Dead, zombies don't exist as a thing characters know about - from movies, TV, or books. It's not even a word anyone uses. But that's not the case on iZombie. "It wasn’t a part of the comics, but it was something that we really enjoyed about the show," Ruggiero-Wright revealed. "Because it is so prevalent in pop culture that we’re having a lot of fun with the fact that that’s where [Liv] does her research. If there were a zombie attack, what would you do? I would watch The Walking Dead and see you could pick up a lot of useful tips. So I think that’s one of the best parts of the show to me, is that they know zombies exist. They can make jokes about it. They reference it, and it was an easy decision because it was the most fun."
But does that mean that the zombies on the show will always be pretty? "If [Liv] didn’t eat, she would decay," Ruggiero-Wright continued. "If we locked her in an elevator for a month, she would start to look like a regular zombie."
Thomas expanded on that, saying "In Episode 3, you see an example of what happens to one of our zombies if they don’t eat." He added that if Liv didn't continue to feed on brains, "She would be a Walking Dead-style zombie - or what we in the show call a 'Romero.'
"I was just thinking that The CW was really wanting to do something different and thought that they might have a show with some attractive people," Ruggiero-Wright joked.
Both Thomas and Ruggiero-Wright of course are known for Veronica Mars, another series with a formidable female lead. But how might Liv differ from Veronica, zombie-ism aside? "I think that Veronica’s hardened," Thomas said. "I always wanted us to sort of, at our best in those voiceovers, strive for this very Raymond Chandler-esque, hard boiled, cynical world view. And I think Liv and iZombie is more naturally a softer character. It’s part of the journey for her is return to sweetness and light and finding things in life that are worth going on living for. So while we are using that [voiceover] technique in both, I think their attitudes are pretty different when we’re writing that VO."
iZombie premieres on Tuesday, March 17th at 9/8c on The CW.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/01...n-the-cws-izombie-compare-to-the-walking-dead
"
kingdarius
Wtf u talkin bout? Ya Bish
meh...i'd bang the main chick tho 
The same folks who did "Veronica Mars" are doing this show.
Young Bishop
Piff Poster
I don't know about this,but I did love Veronica Mars though.
I'll watch it because I like zombie shyt but I really wish they had stuck a little closer to the comic.
Kingshango
Veteran
Veronica Mars with a undead chick, might give it a shot if there's nothing else on.
Scratch that, definitely watching day 1.
Scratch that, definitely watching day 1.
@Emperor_ReinScarf You in?
TheNatureBoy
Veteran
Definitely going to try it out. The concept of her eating brains and being able to give the victims knowledge/skills seems like it has a lot of potential. Plus they got David Anders in it from Alias.