In an interview with ShockTillYouDrop, Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick explained that when they first began work on the idea, before Swayze's diagnosis, they had hoped to cast in him for a surprise bit in the film:

It was [going to be] a Patrick Swayze zombie. They got attacked by him zombified and we had these wonderful moments where they found a potter's wheel and there's Columbus on the wheel and these other hands come up behind him and it's Patrick Swayze the zombie. Ultimately, they fight and Patrick bull rushes Tallahassee who grabs him and lifts him into the air, a la Jennifer Grey, and smashes him into a pillar.

After Swayze bowed out, the pair decided to stick with the celebrity cameo idea, and nabbed a different star for a non-Swayze-themed scene.

Patrick Swayze Was To Cameo In Zombieland [ShockTillYouDrop]

Yesterday, we looked at the teaser for The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel about a murdered girl, Susie Salmon, who watches her surviving family from a personal heaven. Sebold's concept of heaven as an intensely personal place that manifested your conscious and unconscious desires was often the most fascinating part of the book, and the most frustrating in its lack of vividness. But Jackson has molded Sebold's ideas into a dynamic dreamscape, filled with brilliantly colored beaches, mountains, and glacial lakes that could never exist in the real world, juxtaposed against the simple reality of Susie's grieving family.

Also apparent is the way the living and the dead continue to haunt one another. As in Sebold's book, the trailer shows Susie's impact on the living world as her ghost brushes by Ruth Connors and she calls out to her father from the afterlife. But here, we see that Susie's world is altered by the actions of her friends and family. A drawing by her brother seems to come to life as a mountain sunrise. Her father breaking a ship in a bottle causes an exaggerated version of the same captive ship to shatter on the shores. And the memories of the place where she died continue to haunt her afterlife. It's a visually intriguing set of choices to be sure, and hopefully they will also make Susie's posthumous coming of age all the more convincing.

(If you haven't seen the episode, why not watch it online?)

We'll start with the obvious ones. If you're looking for some last minute Hallowe'en comics, you're looking for Marvel's Essential Marvel Horror Vol. 2, packed with reprints of old 1970s horror comics from Marvel's comic-code-and-therefore-toothless era. Which isn't to say that they're not awesome. I mean, come on: Brother Voodoo? Gabriel The Devil Hunter? Sheer comic gold. Then there's Dark Horse's Ghost Omnibus Vol. 1, which offers a two-gun totin' spectral crimefightin' femme fatale. I can't believe this one hasn't crossed over into the movies yet.

You might also want to spend Hallowe'en with Image Comics' Screamland, which looks at what happened to the classic horror monsters of yesteryear after they'd been replaced by computer-generated effects and spat out of the Hollywood Machine. Completely recommended.

Otherwise, it's a week dominated by superheroes - Marvel is putting out a new Warren Ellis series Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes, which ties in with his current Astonishing X-Men run. Though I'd point most people in the direction of the one-off, more fun, X-Men: First Class Giant Size Special instead. I'd also recommend Ultimate Captain America Annual, which will hopefully explain why the Black Panther ended up being white, blue-eyed and... well, Captain America.

DC is having a particularly Bat Week - In addition to the Joker graphic novel, there's also the collected version of the manga series Batman: Death Mask. It's not all Batman, though: Fans of cosmic-powered jewelry, classic ring-slinging action get their day in the sun as well, with the reprint anthology Green Lantern: In Brightest Day, or the rescheduled Final Crisis: Rage Of The Red Lanterns oneshot, which sets up next year's The Blackest Night storyline.

Me, I'd suggest that whether it's a brightest day or a blackest night, the complete list of this week's new comic releases shouldn't escape your sight. And while you're looking out for things, the Comic Shop Locator Service is worth a peep as well. Because, no matter what the weather, comics can make you happy... or, at least, keep you busy until Friday night.