Interview: George A. Romero on Land of the Dead

By Patrick Legare Jun 21, 2005, 5:38 GMT

Interview with the Dead
A Q & A with George A. Romero
 
Every horror film fan knows that the zombie film is a hot commodity these days. The "Dawn of the Dead" remake, "Shaun of the Dead" and "28 Days Later" were all cool, edgy takes on the living dead mythos--but they are still nothing more than cool, edgy pretenders to George A. Romero's ghoulish throne. In case you are unfamiliar with Romero's work, he is the man who popularized the zombie film starting in 1968 with the cult hit "Night of the Living Dead." In 1979, he struck gold, and brain matter, again with the release of "Dawn of the Dead." Then in 1985, his created his third "Dead" film: "Day of the Dead." Each film charted the survival efforts of a select group of humans against an overwhelming army of flesh-eating ghouls, backed with a wry, Romero-esque commentary on American society at the time.
 
Now, after 20 years of zombie silence, comes "Land of the Dead," a film which promises to break new ground while retaining the bloody old-school tactics that have earned Romero legions of dedicated fans.
 
Says Romero, "Land of the Dead" is set in a devastated world. There's no electricity except for places inside the city where people are trying to live normal lives. That is their error, it goes back to the idea of ignoring terrorism and other societal problems outside your own door, that's at the core of what the movie is about?
 
What else can you expect from "Land of the Dead"? For one thing, it will feature the best cast of any Romero zombie film led by Dennis Hopper, Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento and Robert Joy. Backed and released by Universal Pictures, "Land" marks a stellar collaboration between a major studio and a notoriously independent filmmaker who has been a driving force behind the modern-day horror film.
 
Fast-moving ghouls and hyper-speed cuts like the most recent zombie films? Not a chance. Romero and effects supervisor Greg Nicotero enjoy letting the camera dwell on their decaying, bloodthirsty creations, and their victims.
 
Romero's story for "Land" focuses on a fortress-like city filled with human survivors. Beyond the walls of the metropolis, the walking dead roam the land devouring anything left alive. Within the city, the rich minority led by Dennis Hopper's Kaufman control their interests from within the exclusive skyscrapers. Keeping the city afloat with supplies are a team of mercenaries; Simon Baker, John Leguizamo and Asia Argento among them, who travel outside the city in a huge armored vehicle known as Dead Reckoning (Romero's original title for this film). But there is no status quo in this desolate city: unrest is spreading inside of its walls?as well as outside as the living dead have evolved into an organized army. What does it all mean? Flesh-eating chaos, Romero-style.

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M&C: What inspired you to write another Dead film?

George A. Romero on the set of 'Land of the Dead.'

Romero: I feel like I never left. I never sort of closed the door on it. I always wanted to do another one and I had this conceit that I did one in the 60s, one in the 70s and one in the 80s, missed the 90s?circumstances beyond my control, too long a story to do in whatever short time we have here. When I finally got around to thinking seriously about this, I wrote a script and it wasn't exactly the same. It was about ignoring the problem; it was more about social ills: homelessness, AIDS, and like that. Finally finished it, sent it around literally a few days before 9/11 happened, and then 9/11 happened and everybody wanted to make lollipop movies. I just couldn't get a deal. So we put it back on the shelf and sometime after the invasion, took it back down and tried to put a little more emphasis on sort of new-normal post-9/11 era, new normal in the United States.
 
M&C: Aside from a higher profile cast, what did the bigger budget (approximately $19 million) allow you to do on this picture?

Romero: Well, it allowed me to make the movie! It has such a big scope and there are so many sets and cast, everything that goes into a bigger picture. I mean, this was not a rich picture. It wasn't like we were rolling in money. It still pretty much was guerilla filmmaking and we basically had just enough money to make the flick. We were in under $20 (million). A lot of other horror films are $30-35 million so we weren't wealthy. It took the dedication of a hell of a lot of people to be able to pull this off at that level. It wasn't like "Oh man, we're rich, let's go nuts," we weren't able to.<!--page-->
 

M&C: Did you have any trouble cutting the film for an R rating?

Romero: No trouble really. Obviously, we needed an R rating and the studio was really understanding about what I wanted to do. Basically, they and Mark Canton's company said "you guys make the movie you want to make and we'll have to cut it back to deliver. The U.S. theatrical has to be an R." But then, we used some tricks in order to sort of satisfy the fans. You know, Kubrick's trick of walking, if there's a particularly nasty thing happening, if you can walk somebody in front of it, you might be able to get away with it. I did some things like that. They were all green-screened so we can take them off for the DVD.
 
M&C: Gore is important to the Dead films. Would this one compare to the other ones, I imagine it's probably not as graphic where you have guts being eaten or things like that?

Romero: Well, that's going on, that's going on! We don?t linger on it as much because of needing to make the R, but it's there. I don't think anybody will miss it in a certain sense depending on what your expectations are when you come in, but I think even the fans will be satisfied that there is a fair amount of that even in the U.S. theatrical version.
 
M&C: What aspects of the film are you happiest with now that you've seen it?

Romero: You know, performance and story and all of that which has always been the most important thing for me. I mean I don't think of the last, this one and the two before I don't think of as necessarily scary films. They were action-adventures with some jumps and startles and with sort of this political underbelly. But they are irreverent and this film is appropriately irreverent. I'm very satisfied with it as far as being a good potboiler story. I think the characters come off, the cast was great, those are the ingredients that make a movie no matter what kind of movie it is. So I think that's probably what I am most satisfied with is that?I think it plays as a movie, forget what kind of movie it is.
 
M&C: You obviously hold a genuine affection for horror films. Are you content in the genre or would you care to break new ground down the road?

Romero: Well, of course, I'd love to. I'd love to do some other stuff, but when you have a reputation in a genre, that's mostly what you get asked to do. Of course, I'd love to do some other things, but I am very happy being right where I am. I grew up reading EC comic books, I grew up watching horror films. I'm happy to be able to be making them so no complaints as far as that goes.
 
M&C: Do you have a dream project?

Romero: Yes, there are two scripts that my partner and I have developed at different studios and that we really love. I'd like to do those and I do have a dream project which is about elephants, nobody will ever let me make that one probably.
 
M&C: Can you elaborate on it at all?

Romero: Well, it's a long story maybe I'll talk to you about it tonight (joking). It would be a long story, it?s hard to tell you. It's basically about the plight of elephants, sort of my Roots of Heaven.
 
M&C: It sounds like this studio experience was a very positive one for you.

Romero: Absolutely.
 
M&C: Do you anticipate working with Mark Canton and Universal again?

Romero: I'd love to, yeah. We're talking about some things, I'd really love to. Most of my stuff has been independently financed. I've only done two (studio films). "Creepshow" was Warners, but they picked it up, it was a negative pick-up from UATC. I did two films for Orion and now working with Universal has been fabulous. I've never had complaints. I've always come out if somebody wants to have a meeting, I'm always the first guy there, but this has been the first time that I've been really thrilled with the response and the support that we've been getting.
 
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M&C: Why did they decide to push the release date up?

Romero: Well, I have no idea. All I can say is that it's terrifying.
 
M&C: There is a lot of competition around

Romero: There is. It's also very flattering. Obviously, they had enough faith in the film to think that they could do this and get away with it.
 
M&C: Would you mind giving a quick update on any upcoming projects you are working on now?

Romero: There's no paperwork on anything. We're working with Stephen King on a project called "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon." There's another project called "Diamond Dead" (check it out at www.diamonddead.com) which I don?t know if it's ever going to happen or not. In other words, there are no deals and as I told you, we have several things in the drawer and because of the buzz on (LOTD), we?re starting to get phone calls about other things.
 
M&C: I hate hearing that, especially after following your career throughout the 90s when every month it seemed like you had a new project that you'd read about and get all excited to see?

Romero: And none of them happened.
 
M&C: Out of all those films you were attached to, was there one that really hurt the most?

Romero: Yes. We had a project called "Before I Wake" which was at three different studios. It wound up at Fox with Chris Columbus' company and it really looked like it was going to get made. Eventually, it didn't, but MGM had it right before that and I had also been working on a script for "The Mummy" very different from "The Mummy" that they eventually made. But MGM wouldn't let us out of our contract for the other film, and then they didn't make it so it was the biggest disappointment of my life not to do "The Mummy."
 
M&C: Will LOTD be the last Dead film?

Romero: No. I prefer to think of it as the fourth of 10! Who knows man. I mean I won't be on my feet that long, but no I don't think of it as the last and I never have. Everyone said "Oh when you did Day of the Dead, I thought it was the last one." I never said it was the last one.
 
M&C: Do you know how much footage you'll be adding to the uncut version (for foreign release and DVD)?

Romero: I don't have the actual running time of the new footage. There's only one scene that we shot that isn?t in the U.S. theatrical release. It's only four-and-a-half minutes more in the actual film, but we threw in a lot of extras. We actually threw in even failed effects so you can see where we screwed up.

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"Land of the Dead" opens on June 24, look our for a review later in the week.

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