Zombies are hot right now, which is kind of gross because you would think that a warmer environment would only speed their decay. Which is sort of a good metaphor for all the zombie movies we’re getting, as I will bet you dollars to donuts that once the current zombie craze ends we’re seeing our theaters walking dead-free for another decade.
One of the films really cashing in on the cannibal dead mania is the Dawn of the Dead remake, which just came out on DVD (right in time for you to watch it on Halloween and be terrified by the crass commercialization that ignores the original’s themes! I enjoyed the remake, but we must never forget the original). Universal is so pleased with the film’s performance that they have told director Zack Snyder that they want a sequel.
Snyder tells Sci-Fi Wire that he told them they should remake Day of the Dead, but the studio declined. Says Snyder: "We kicked around some ideas, but I don’t
know what we’re going to do with it. We’ve talked about it. I met with
James. I met with the producers. The heat comes on and off of that. I
think Universal wants it bad."
I can’t blame them for not wanting to remake Day. It’s the most difficult film in the Romero trilogy, one which took me a number of viewings to really appreciate. Where Dawn is a more visceral, action packed film, Day is almost meditative in nature. At the very least it’s slow and talky.
But a Dawn sequel runs into one interesting problem – Universal is signed on to distribute Romero’s Land of the Dead. Could they sacrifice the smaller, niche oriented Romero film to pursue the bigger, commercial film?