George Romero isn't happy that zombies went Hollywood

[Thorn]

An interesting read...


"I harbor a lot of resentment," Romero said. "I used to be the only guy on the zombie playground, and unfortunately Brad Pitt and The Walking Dead have it 'Hollywood-ized.' I was ready to do another one, a $2 million to $3 million one, and nobody will finance a zombie film now."

Full article here:
http://www.looper.com/73662/george-romero-isnt-happy-zombies-went-hollywood/

[EvilNed]

I wonder if he himself realizes that he's just not that good anymore.

[shootemindehead]

A few months ago, he announced George A. Romero Presents: Road of the Dead, which is about zombies who are forced to drive cars in a Rollerball and Mad Max-type competition. However, that's the movie he's had trouble financing.

I have to say that I am really not surprised.

Romero's better than this and I'd love to see him knock out one more zombie flick that we could consider great. But, with proposals like the above, I fear that that will just never happen. 'Road of the Dead' sounds like something that somebody with no idea what the genre was about would come up with.

It's remarkable is its sheer WTF.

[LivingDeadGuy]

I will always love the classics in the zombie genre but I have to admit that zombies have been getting stupid lately now that they have turned mainstream. And while Romero's original movies were great his newer ones after Land of the Dead show how he's been going downhill as a director.

[JDP]

An interesting read...



Full article here:
http://www.looper.com/73662/george-romero-isnt-happy-zombies-went-hollywood/

This is a strange and ironic comment since Romero himself has been "Hollywood-ized". I actually find The Walking Dead to be way less "Hollywood-ized" and more like the 70s-80s zombie movies than all of Romero's zombie movies after Day of the Dead.

[LivingDeadGuy]

I actually find The Walking Dead to be way less "Hollywood-ized" and more like the 70s-80s zombie movies than all of Romero's zombie movies after Day of the Dead
I'm sorry but I disagree with that statement. We're talking about a show that features a black woman with a katana who goes around killing zombies samurai-style. That's just the sort of cheese I would expect in a Hollywoodized zombie movie or show.

And also the Night of the Living Dead remake from 1990 wasn't Hollywoodized at all it was pretty much done in the same low budget style as Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

[Thorn]

An interesting read...



Full article here:
http://www.looper.com/73662/george-romero-isnt-happy-zombies-went-hollywood/

Solid point, and sadly I doubt it.

[JDP]

I'm sorry but I disagree with that statement. We're talking about a show that features a black woman with a katana who goes around killing zombies samurai-style. That's just the sort of cheese I would expect in a Hollywoodized zombie movie or show.

The Walking Dead is based on stories and characters from a comic book, that's where the idea of the woman with the katana comes from. The show is quite gorier, darker and grittier than any of Romero's zombie efforts after Day. The reason for this is largely due to Greg Nicotero (who in fact worked in Day of the Dead, both as an actor as well as in the make-up department) being heavily involved with the show. Unlike Romero, Nicotero has been more successful at staying truer to the spirit of the 70s-80s zombie flicks. He sometimes even pays homage to Romero and Fulci by introducing "Easter egg" zombies inspired by their films.


And also the Night of the Living Dead remake from 1990 wasn't Hollywoodized at all it was pretty much done in the same low budget style as Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

I found it tame in comparison to either the original or the 70s & 80s zombie movies that came after the original Night.

[MinionZombie]

Plus TWD (the comic book) was decidedly inspired by Romero's trilogy (at the time they started coming out it was a few years before Land happened). It's not like Romero's work is without comic book influences or approaches, either, aside from the obvious thing to point at (Creepshow - as well as Romero growing up reading EC Comics), his zombie films are filled with featured zombies that take on strong images, some of them slightly comic. You've got nuns, nurses, soldiers, sunbathers, brides and all sorts shuffling about.

Land of the Dead has a few flaws, but it's a solid entry that's aged fairly well. Diary of the Dead, on the other hand, has many problems ... there's some neat ideas in there, and some nifty scenes, but tonally it's all over the shop and I'm not sure if Romero quite knew how to say what he wanted to say with it. The CGI looks dreadful, too. Now ... Survival of the Dead ... I quite enjoy that flick (although I've not seen it in a few years at this point), but at the same time it's absolutely nowhere near the original trilogy in terms of quality, but one of the things I liked most about it was Romero returning to a politics-influenced central conceit of two warring factions stuck together on an island with neither side listening to each other. There's some incredibly silly moments that work and others that don't (the Loony Tunes-esque dynamite handover worked, while the fire extinguisher kill replete with dodgy 'n' cheap CGI was too much), but generally I quite like it (I loved the two opposing patriarchs standing on a hilltop as zombies firing empty guns at each other against the moon backdrop).

There's little point in Romero decrying others' success - which his work has greatly inspired - but I can also empathise that it must be a very disappointing position to be in where you can't get funding for your work. I would love to see Romero tackle something other than zombies as he can clearly do great work outside of the undead (Martin is an all-time great, for instance), but I'd imagine there's also funding problems there, too. :(

[shootemindehead]

I wholly understand Romero's ire at 'The Walking Dead'. I reckon it's something he would have loved to have been handed to him in his day. A day BTW, which saw zombie films relegated to the status of prosecutable offences in the UK. The times have definitely changed and I think Romero may feel a little hard done by as he did a ton of ground work, but isn't seeing the rewards for his labour.

However, one must point out that a lot of Romero's position is down to his own odd choices. 'Land of the Dead' was pretty ok IMHO, I still give it a go now and again. But, both 'Diary of the Dead' and 'Survival of the Dead' were terrible. Embarrassingly so, and they've acted like nails in Romero's zombie movie coffin. It also seems that he hasn't taken on board any of the lessons of those failures either, because 'Road of the Dead' is more of the same dreck.

A zombie film doesn't need some gimmicky story element to hang itself around. It doesn't need to have a message about uploading shit to the web, it doesn't need to have a bizarre island off the coast of America filled with warring families who have Hollywood Oirish accents and it doesn't need a living dead Indy 500.

George needs to go back to basics. Make a simple film about a group of people surviving on the road in a zombie apocalypse on a journey from California to DC in an attempt to reach the safety of a government bunker they heard about from some official they pick up. A zombie road movie, set after 'Land of the Dead' (we don't need any more of the reboot attempt), where most of the country belongs to the dead, but there are scattered enclaves here and there.

Drop the gimmick and tell a story. He'd get financing for that.

[Moon Knight]

Modern day George makes me sad.

[h8ful666]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who abhors 'The Walking Dead' and the plethora of junk that's churned out these days. Unfortunately, I haven't been excited about anything Romero has done post-'Land of the Dead' (and that was a stretch) either.

[JonOfTheShred]

I loved Land, and still do. Diary was a cool idea, but the execution left a bit to be desired. The acting really fell short.

[LivingDeadGuy]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who abhors 'The Walking Dead' and the plethora of junk that's churned out these days. Unfortunately, I haven't been excited about anything Romero has done post-'Land of the Dead' (and that was a stretch) either.

Me too! :D The Walking Dead is overrated to all hell.

[darth los]

Plus TWD (the comic book) was decidedly inspired by Romero's trilogy (at the time they started coming out it was a few years before Land happened). It's not like Romero's work is without comic book influences or approaches, either, aside from the obvious thing to point at (Creepshow - as well as Romero growing up reading EC Comics), his zombie films are filled with featured zombies that take on strong images, some of them slightly comic. You've got nuns, nurses, soldiers, sunbathers, brides and all sorts shuffling about.

Land of the Dead has a few flaws, but it's a solid entry that's aged fairly well. Diary of the Dead, on the other hand, has many problems ... there's some neat ideas in there, and some nifty scenes, but tonally it's all over the shop and I'm not sure if Romero quite knew how to say what he wanted to say with it. The CGI looks dreadful, too. Now ... Survival of the Dead ... I quite enjoy that flick (although I've not seen it in a few years at this point), but at the same time it's absolutely nowhere near the original trilogy in terms of quality, but one of the things I liked most about it was Romero returning to a politics-influenced central conceit of two warring factions stuck together on an island with neither side listening to each other. There's some incredibly silly moments that work and others that don't (the Loony Tunes-esque dynamite handover worked, while the fire extinguisher kill replete with dodgy 'n' cheap CGI was too much), but generally I quite like it (I loved the two opposing patriarchs standing on a hilltop as zombies firing empty guns at each other against the moon backdrop).

There's little point in Romero decrying others' success - which his work has greatly inspired - but I can also empathise that it must be a very disappointing position to be in where you can't get funding for your work. I would love to see Romero tackle something other than zombies as he can clearly do great work outside of the undead (Martin is an all-time great, for instance), but I'd imagine there's also funding problems there, too. :(


That's like a horse and buggy salesman decrying the success of the model T. Make a better product and you would have gotten funding. Everything must either evolve or die. GAR simply refused to evolve with the times and stubbornly stuck to his vision. He just refused to accept that perhaps others in the genre had ideas worthy of incorporating into his work. We should have known he lost it in land of the dead. Smart zombies! Get it? Only no one did. it was an awful idea that only served to humanize them and turn them into sympathetic figures. Wtf!?! They're fucking dead and you want to teach them tricks!?! Even Rhodes knew it was ludacris.
..
Now an intelligent zombie as an anomoly, such as Bub I can accept. But zombies in general evolving and developing intelligence doesn't pass the smell test and requires a much larger than usual suspension of disbelief which completely takes me out of the film.

What we actually should be seeing is a DEVOLUTION. Their rotting brains should be less and less capable of higher functions as time passes, such as organizing a zombie assault on Kaufman town, playing in a band or holding your zombie girlfriend's hand. ( Jesus Christ).

They should be decaying at a rate that in a few years there should be nothing left but a pile of bones, not roaming off at the end of the movie to find greener zombie pastures to have zombie babies with my zombified girlfriend. How someone can accept that yet throw a fit at Snyder's zombie baby is beyond me. Both are equally ridiculous imo.

Someone hit it on the head earlier. I think he lost the ability to say what he wanted to say in this world of new fangled technology. Contrast that with the social commentary in his earlier works, which were spot on, and it's night and day.

But as we all know old people are set in their ways so.......

:cool:

[clanglee]

I kind of agree with George here though. While I enjoy walking dead and a few other flicks here and there. Hollywood kind of killed the genre for me. . . . Oversaturation. Too many. And the gaming industry as well. Took what was great about George's early movies out and left in all the dreck

[LivingDeadGuy]

I kind of agree with George here though. While I enjoy walking dead and a few other flicks here and there. Hollywood kind of killed the genre for me. . . . Oversaturation. Too many. And the gaming industry as well. Took what was great about George's early movies out and left in all the dreck
I can esp relate to the part about gaming. Used to in the old days (mainly the 90's) you had zombie games like Resident Evil and House of the Dead that were done in the same style as Romero's movies (dare i say that they were tributes?) but now zombie games are a joke and focus more on action than horror. And what's the deal with this new fad of taking games that aren't even about zombies and randomly adding zombies to them?