Horror veteran Romero returns to "Dead" zone
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - The dead are rising again. Horror maven George A. Romero has signed on to write and direct "George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead," following in the tradition of his 1968 cult classic "Night of the Living Dead."
With a story mixing elements of "The Blair Witch Project" and the long-running "Dead" series, the film will follow a group of college students shooting a horror movie in the woods who stumble upon a real zombie uprising. When the onslaught begins, they seize the moment as any good film students would, capturing the undead in a "cinema verite" style that causes more than the usual production headaches.
After going more than two decades without making an independently financed zombie film, Romero told his production partner Peter Grunwald he was frustrated working within the system. "I was trying to convince Peter we could just run off and do it ourselves," he said.
Instead they convinced Artfire Films to finance the under-$5 million project, enough to work with union crew members who've been longtime friends.
Romero's new script replaces the original's static-filled radio with new technologies like smartphones to inform characters of impending doom. But fans can expect the classic Romero style.
"It has my sensibility, my sense of socioeconomic satire," he said. "And it has my zombies! They're not rushing around -- they're gonna be moving slow." Added Grunwald, "There'll be a lot of howling."
The film's four-week shoot is scheduled to begin October 11 in Toronto.
"Dead" is just the latest in a series of films with a recurring theme for Romero, including 1978's "Dawn of the Dead," 1985's "Day of the Dead" and 2005's "Land of the Dead." His other credits include 1982's "Creepshow," 1973's "The Crazies" and the 1974 TV documentary "O.J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose."
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
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