George A. Romero ushered in the modern zombie movie with his 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead, following it up with five sequels of varying quality, the last of which – Survival of the Dead – was released back in 2009. Given the enormous popularity of The Walking Dead, zombies are big business once again, so it would seem a perfect time for Romero to return to the genre for one last hurrah. However, the filmmaker has revealed to THR that he has no interest in revisiting the series at present, as he feels that Brad Pitt and The Walking Dead have killed the genre.
“I’ve sort of dropped out of it,” said Romero when asked about the future of the franchise. “The Dead are everywhere these days. I think really Brad Pitt killed it. The Walking Dead and Brad Pitt just sort of killed it all. The remake of Dawn of the Dead made money. I think pretty big money. Then Zombieland made money, and then all of a sudden, along comes Brad Pitt and he spends $400 million or whatever the hell to do World War Z. [Author] Max Brooks is a friend of mine, and I thought the film was not at all representative what the book was and the zombies were, I don’t know, ants crawling over the wall in Israel. Army ants. You might as well make The Naked Jungle. As far as I’m concerned, I’m content to wait until sort of zombies die off. My films, I’ve tried to put a message into them. It’s not about the gore, it’s not about the horror element that are in them. It’s more about the message, for me. That’s what it is, and I’m using this platform to be able to show my feelings of what I think.”
What do you make of Romero’s comments? Is he right about World War Z and The Walking Dead, and are you disappointed that we may have seen the last of Romero’s Dead series? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
Originally published November 2, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
