Zombie Obsession

George Romero's Fear.net Interview

Horror master and godfather of the modern zombie movie, George Romero, took some time to talk to us about the future of his Dead series. He also spoke about Diamond Dead (his long-awaited zombie musical), his involvement in The Crazies remake, and the upcoming Diary of the Dead DVD!

Do you see Diary of the Dead as the first film in a new zombie trilogy for you?

[Laughs.] You know what, I see it as, if there’s another zombie movie for me—and right now it looks like there’s going to be—I would certainly make it a sequel to this film rather than keep going along the other track. The first four films, the phenomenon had sort of gone on, and for the first time I indicated, in Land of the Dead, that it had been going on for three years. So I sort of put a time frame on it. I sort of found myself in a place where I thought, 'Where else can I go? How much bigger can you get than that?' I felt that I lost track of the roots, and I just wanted to go back and be simple again. There’s a collection of short stories called Book of the Dead, and in fact there was a Book of the Dead 2, and it was all horror and science fiction writers that wrote stories that were based on Night of the Living Dead, but all of the stories were what happened to other people on the same night. I said, 'You know what? I can do the same thing with a new cast of characters and start over.' I also had this idea... I mean, all of my films grew out of what’s happening in the world. I don’t wake up and say, 'I just want to make another zombie movie for the hell of it.' All of them were more than ten years apart and were all about perceptions I had about what was happening out in the world. I had this idea to do something about all this new emerging media that’s replacing mainstream media very quickly. That’s why I had to do it quickly, so it was the first time I did a zombie film within three years of the last zombie film. But I had the idea and the urge to go back and do something smaller that I could control and that would have a low enough budget that I could get all of the creative control on it. It was just sort of everything falling into place, and good timing!

There’s been some speculation about another zombie film that you may or may not be involved with--a zombie musical called Diamond Dead.

I love it, I love it, I’ve always loved it. It’s a project that’s being promoted by an Australian producer named Andrew Gaty. People from Rocky Horror are involved in it. Richard Hartley wrote the score. It’s ready to roll. We tried everything we could do to get that movie made--nobody got it. We even got Ridley Scott and Scott Free (his production company) behind it and pitched it everywhere, and everyone said, 'We don’t get this.' This has gone on for the past three years.

This is also the problem with the internet because anything that I discuss with anybody ends up on the internet as my next project. Diamond Dead happens to be one that I really love. I spent two years working on a script, pitching it. Ridley Scott came on and really wanted to do it, but everyone basically said no.

But then just before I was ready to come on this tour I get a call from that Australian guy, who says the project is back up and there’s new interest in it, and he’ll send me the script. Apparently there’s a new script and I haven’t even gotten it yet. It is alive again but only to that extent. I haven’t seen the script, maybe I won’t like it. But that’s a project I would really love to do. I can point you to five or six other projects that, according to the internet, I’m just about getting ready to get up and shoot. None of it is true and none of it is real. It’s not real until it’s real. When it is real I’ll be up there saying, 'Hey guys, it’s real.'

Each of your Dead films has a strong social commentary, could you already see what issues you might be tackling in a follow-up to Diary?

No. [Laughs.] Diary is already a very successful film, just even based on pre-sales its already made money for everybody. There’s a lot of talk automatically about doing a sequel quickly. If I had to do it quickly I’m going to take the three surviving characters and continue the story. There’s a lot I’d like to say about American media and how we’re all being captivated by it but I don’t have a script yet. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. If I have to do one very quickly that’s what it would be about. Otherwise I would wait. Until some sort of an idea, or until something happened in the world that would be dramatic enough.

Another project your name has been attached to is the remake of The Crazies...

I have absolutely nothing to do with that. I don’t have anything to do with the remakes of any of my films. Paramount had The Crazies for three years and never made the movie. I understand now that someone else just bought it, and now there’s some big flap about, 'Ookay we’re going to shoot it.' I have nothing to do with it. I know nothing about it. Because of my original film I have the title of executive producer, which means nobody even needs to call me up and tell me what’s going on. I’m blown away that all these movies are being remade, when no one wants to see them in the first place. [Laughs.] It kills me.

With Diary, could you say if there are any scenes that you may have left out that we’ll see on DVD?