Day of the Dead TV Show Ties Into George A. Romero’s Original Classic
Syfy’s upcoming Day of the Dead TV series will have some ties to the original movie by George A. Romero, suggesting the show will be set in the same universe as opposed to serving as a complete remake. While plot details are still vague, what’s known about the series is that it will follow six strangers trying to survive the first 24 hours of a zombie outbreak. Writers Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas will serve as showrunners, and Steven Kostanski helmed four of the ten episodes.
Speaking about the status of the series on the Bloody Disgusting’s Boo Crew Podcast, Kostanski confirmed he wrapped his work on Day of the Dead just last month. Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the chat is the revelation that the series will have some connections to the George A. Romero movie, though the director stops short of revealing exactly what those ties are. From the interview:
“I actually wrapped up working on that back in December; I ended up shooting the first four episodes of the show. So it’s a ten episode series; it does have ties to the original movie. I can’t go into too many specifics, unfortunately. I’m not really allowed to say much of anything.”
Steven Kostanski goes on to describe the tone of the series, promising great-looking zombies despite the show’s low budget.
“It was a very scrappy, low budget affair, and I had a ton of fun making it… We got Masters FX to once again provide creature effects for it. So I can say that, at the very least, the zombies are super awesome. It’s a very weird, interesting show, that I don’t think is what people are going to be expecting. I had a ton of fun making it, and really utilized all my low-budget sensibilities to pull it off. It was another case of like, a very ambitious premise, with the bare minimum of resources. And I think that yielded a lot of great creativity from the team.”
Written and directed by George A. Romero, Day of the Dead was released in 1985. The third installment of the zombie movie pioneer’s Living Dead trilogy, the movie is set some time after the undead have already ravaged the world with a group of survivors hiding out in an underground bunker. Along with Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead is widely considered to be one of the very best zombie movies ever in the eyes of horror fans.
A prequel, Day of the Dead 2: Contagium, was released in 2005, but with no involvement from Romero. Two remakes would later follow, releasing in 2008 and 2013. None of these projects struck a chord with horror fans in the same way the original had, and these movies have mostly been forgotten. Hopefully, by tying directly to the original Romero movie, the new series from Syfy will turn out better than the prequel and the remakes.
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